Dedication: For Lily, in fulfillment of a promise I made to her nearly a year ago. Sorry it's so late. Thanks for all your help and encouragement while writing this story.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the recognized characters in this story. All others are my own creation.

I'm experimenting with a new style and subject matter in this story, so I hope you enjoy it. I've been absent for a while, but it's always a joy to return to my favorite fandom. And I particularly love writing in Don's voice.

As always, reviews are appreciated and welcomed! Please leave one!

Chapter 1

"Stop! NYPD!"

Cold November wind swirled around me as I sprinted after the murder suspect, dodging pedestrians and random objects he flung in my direction. "Figures," I muttered to myself as the guy stepped on the gas. They always run. Even when it's not in their best interest, they run. And it's never in their best interest to run.

Stupid criminals. They'll never learn. I guess that's why they're criminals. I've met quite a few in my decade on the job, and though there might be some clever criminals, they never quite get the running thing.

Willing my long legs to move faster, I risked a glance behind me. Danny hustled after me, huffing and puffing, his face red and his glasses slightly askew. Somewhere back there I heard a screech of rubber meeting road at speeds that would rival the speed of sound. This time, I didn't even bother looking back. I knew who it was: Mac and Stella, racing down Broadway in their Avalanche from where they'd been sitting about a block from the suspect's apartment. My back-up was on the way.

Shoving a hapless pedestrian out of the way and ignoring his shouted "Hey!" I sped up, gaining on the quick but shorter Yanni Suh. The thirty-five-year-old businessman was in pretty good shape for having sat behind a desk for most of his adult life. We'd been running now for the better part of half a mile and I knew he had to be getting tired. I certainly was. It was bitterly cold and damp; with every breath I took, my lungs burned. But I pushed on. He wasn't about to get the best of ol' Don Flack.

Suddenly he took a sharp turn into another alley. Skidding around the corner, I came to a sudden halt. It was a dead end. The only thing in front of me was a tall, brick building, laundry hanging off the clotheslines stretched over the concrete, waving in the stiff northern wind like multi-colored banners. Two other brick buildings, most likely apartments, framed the alley, fire escape landings and potted plants the only things in sight.

No sign of Suh.

Thunder rumbled loudly above me, and I rolled my eyes as I drew my weapon. Of course it would rain right as I was chasing down a man who'd brutally murdered his business partner, a young woman of about twenty-eight, her entire life before her. I knew the minute we were called to that scene that I would never get that sight out of my mind's eye. Truthfully, I'd seen it before: blood spatter painting the carpet and walls, shattered glass littering the floor, unseeing eyes frozen in a macabre death mask. But those unseeing eyes were a deep, dark brown, matching chestnut hair fanning out in a puddle of congealing scarlet.

Jessica's death came rushing back to me. She'd been gone for nearly a year, and I'd tried my best to stamp down the pain her murder had brought on me. But when you lose someone you care about, it never quite goes away, no matter how hard you try. And I'd cared very deeply for her.

It had taken nearly two weeks, but we had finally garnered enough evidence, built on forensics and eyewitness statements, to arrest Suh. He was a man who had forged a career from the ground up on nothing but deceit and threats of bodily harm. Yanni Suh was a tough man, raised on the streets of L.A., and he was a cruel man. I'd talked to the ADA assigned to prosecute his case; turned out that the District Attorney's office had been trying for months to build a case against him for racketeering. This had been the first murder he'd committed himself, rather than having one of his hired musclemen do it for him.

As far as I was concerned, it just meant we could finally yank him off the street like the dog he was.

A sudden noise jolted me from my thoughts. My Glock came up instinctually as I spun around, fully alert now. The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. Suh had panicked when Danny and I dropped by his office to talk to him after finding the hair he'd neglected to remove from his partner's body. And I was pretty sure he was armed; I'd caught a glimpse of something that looked like the butt of a gun sticking out of his pants as we ran. He'd had nowhere to go; he certainly hadn't gotten past me.

Where the hell was Danny?

Another clatter sounded from in front of me. My eyes trained on a pile of garbage to my right, my finger tightened on the trigger. And just as I was about to fire, I heard a soft mew. Lowering my gun, I glared at the oversized, orange tabby making a mad dash across the alley and into the dumpster nearby. "Stupid cat," I mumbled, irritated at myself for being so jumpy. Another rumbled of thunder rolled above me, and a cold raindrop splashed on my black jacket. I swore again, lowering my weapon. I'm a cop, for crying out loud. I don't jump at dumb noises in alleys.

At least, so I thought, until I heard another noise behind me. I started to whirl around…

Too late.

I felt then heard the crack on the crown of my skull. Pain shot through my head, and I literally saw stars. Concrete rushed up to me, and numbness raced through my left hand as I crashed to the ground. My vision swimming before my eyes, I barely made out my gun skittering off down the alley and out of sight. Just as the darkness began to overtake me, I heard Suh say in the most derisive sneer he could muster, "Nighty-night, Detective."

And then there was nothing but black.

Floating.

Not falling. Floating.

It was the strangest feeling I'd ever had, the strangest concussion I'd ever experienced (and having played some basketball in high school, I'd experienced my fair share). It was like my body was suspended between two worlds. My arms and legs were heavy, like they had been laden with twenty-pound weights. At the same time, I felt as light as a feather, drifting back and forth in the wind like an autumn leaf. Stars whirled around my head like they did in cartoons, and for a brief moment I considered laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of it.

But the moment I felt something sticky dripping down the back of my neck, the urge to laugh fled.

Have you ever heard that, when you're dying, your life flashes before your eyes? I wasn't dying – at least, I didn't think so at the time – and yet, I saw everything so very clearly. My mom. My insane fourth grade teacher. High school. My first girlfriend. The police academy. My mentor. My first ride-along. Samantha. My dad. The lab rats. Jessica.

Jessica's face lingered the longest, hazy, like a television picture without enough signal. But suddenly, she began to materialize before me, tall, lithe, gorgeous, like she'd always been. Her long, dark hair fell softly to her shoulders, curling in gentle waves. Brown eyes sparkled like the stars still spinning around my head, and a grin passed over her beautiful features. "Wake up, Don," she whispered.

My chest constricted painfully. My God, she looked just as she had the first time we slept together. The morning light had fingered its way between the drapes in my bedroom. She had draped her arm across my chest and pressed her lips to my cheek before sliding them across to my ear and murmuring the dirtiest things I'd ever heard. I knew then that I loved her. Completely, totally and irreversibly loved her.

Something cold and wet splashed onto my face. Was it a tear?

"Jess," I mumbled, straining to touch her, but my arms were so heavy. My muscles refused to move, as if an elephant was sitting on them. Every fiber of my being ached to reach for her, to stroke her face one last time. "Jess, please…"

"Don," she smiled softly, reaching out her hand to touch my face. I could feel it as if she were really there, even though the rational, non-concussed side of my mind knew that was entirely impossible; she was in a coffin six feet underground in a cemetery in Brooklyn. But oh, how her eyes sparked that feeling she always had deep within my chest. "Don, you have to wake up."

"I… I…" Honestly, waking up was the last thing I wanted to do, if it meant she'd leave me again. And my arms and legs still felt as gravity had magnified a hundred-fold.

Her smile widening, she shook her head, sending her curls tumbling gently over her shoulders. "I can't stay, Don. Open your eyes. Wake up."

"Please…" I'm not a man to beg, but this was Jess, for crying out loud. The thought of her vanishing again was like a shiv straight through my heart. "Please… I can't…"

She chuckled amusedly and reached out a hand to shake my shoulder. "Mister, wake up!"

Mister? Why the hell would she call me "mister"?

And, just as quickly as the weight had been added to my extremities, it vanished. My body felt as light as a feather. Another icy drop splashed on my forehead, followed by another and another. Jessica's face dissipated, replaced by a steadily growing light on the other side of my eyelids.

Groaning at the pounding in my head, I slowly managed to open one eye and blinked at the sudden brightness of a street lamp in the alleyway. Narrowing my eyes, I focused on the sky above me; it was a deep black. The concrete was cold under my body, and icy rain dripped into my face. I groaned again, lifting a hand to wipe the water from my forehead. I must have been out for hours.

Where the hell were Danny, Mac and Stella? Surely they would've found me by now.

"You okay, mister?"

There was the voice again, but this time it was the small, child-like, high-pitched tones of a boy not yet through puberty, completely unlike the usual dulcet tones in which she always spoke. Blinking open the other eye, my vision sluggishly focused on a young face peering down at me. A shock of red hair peeked out from under a dark newspaper-boy's cap, and freckles danced across a concerned face as the boy of about ten wrinkled his nose. "You feelin' all right?" he asked again.

I groaned again as another flash of pain shot through my skull. "I think so. You didn't see a guy run out of here, did you? Short guy, dark hair?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Sorry, mister."

The boy straightened and put his hands on his hips in the defiant manner that only a child could muster. His green eyes narrowed at me suspiciously, and he wrinkled his nose again, sending waves of freckles crashing across his face. "What happened to you?"

I glared at him. "You sure are nosy."

"You sure are weird," he shot back, and this time it brought a slight, albeit pained, smile to my face.

"I hit my head."

"On what?"

Again I glared at him. "On the other guy's crowbar."

My sharp comment didn't faze him one iota. "Why are you dressed so funny?"

I looked down at my filthy suit, and again I groaned. It would cost a fortune to get dry-cleaned. "Me?" I retorted. "You're the one who's dressed funny. What kind of outfit is that?" I gestured to his ripped, black trousers, the hems of which hovered over his ankles. "Why aren't you at home doing homework or something?"

He laughed, a merry sound despite my growing irritation at the cold rainwater dripping down the back of my neck and the incessant questions coming from this little boy. "You're funny, mister."

I failed to see the humor in that. "Thanks, I guess," I replied dryly as I tried to sit up. The alley whirled around my head and the boy's face blurred. I'd had my bell rung many times, but never quite so much as to induce visions and ghosts.

"Sure you're okay?"

"Maybe. Give me a second." I touched the lump on the back of my head and winced. Suh had definitely gotten me good. Briefly I wondered why Danny wasn't in the alley with me and dismissed the thought. I'd give him a hard time later. I shook my head slightly, trying to clear the last of the cobwebs from my mind and my vision before I attempted getting up.

"Sure is taking you long enough," the boy commented snidely. I simply glared at him again, and he giggled. "You're really funny."

"Yeah, so you told me." I took a moment to glance around the alley. For a moment it looked like the same alley I'd chased Suh into, but something was off. Something I couldn't quite place my finger on.

"You really gonna be okay, Mister?"

I looked up at the boy. Now that my vision had cleared, I really noticed for the first time what he was wearing. Black pants covered in patches came down to his knobby ankles, hovering over a pair of worn and scuffed black shoes. The black newspaper boy's cap was pulled down to his eyebrows, and a tan coat covered what he was wearing underneath. Black smudges were interspersed with his freckles. I frowned. This wasn't the dress of a child in the twenty-first century. "I think so," I replied finally.

He nodded. "Good. I gotta get home for supper." He sprinted out of the alley just as I called after him, "Hey, kid!" He didn't stop. Within seconds he had disappeared into the rainy, gray shroud outside the entrance to the alley. I sighed, wiping rain off my forehead and struggling to my feet. Placing my hand on the brick wall to steady myself, I waited for a few seconds until the spinning stopped. Fighting the wave of nausea that suddenly hit me, I took a deep breath and slowly trudged toward the street.

And immediately stopped dead in my tracks.

This wasn't the New York I was accustomed to. In fact, it was nothing like it. Oh, sure, the streets were still packed with people and horns still blared loudly. But gone were the Porsches and pick-ups and sedans and vans. In their places were a host of cars I'd only seen in the antique car shows my dad always dragged me to when I was a kid. I immediately recognized the long, clunky bodies, the prominent headlights, the broad running boards for a passenger to step on while entering the vehicle, the short, white, rubber wheels. These were the cars made famous in all those old movies, like Casablanca or those Alfred Hitchcock classics. They were the Chrysler Imperials, Chevy Coupes, Pontiacs, Buicks, Fords.

And they were everywhere.

"Must be antique car week or something," I murmured to myself. Either that or I was still dreaming. Unable to resist the urge, I pinched myself.

It hurt.

And that was weird. But I'd done it before in dreams, and it hurt. Maybe I was still knocked out in that alley. I'd see myself lying there if I just turned around.

So I did. But I wasn't there.

An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. Something was very, very wrong.

I flipped up the collar of my trench coat and stepped out into the crowded sidewalk. I moved with the throng, heading down 57th Street toward Broadway. Perhaps if I made my way toward the lab, I'd run into something I recognized.

The wind howled between the buildings, lifting the corner of my trench coat and snaking its way down my back. I wrapped it tighter around my body, shivering. The rain had transformed into an icy mist, just enough to soak my hair and face. I glanced at my surroundings; I'd lived here my entire life, but finding something familiar would've certainly brought me comfort.

Suddenly I frowned. Nothing looked familiar. I was halfway to Broadway, and nothing looked like it had earlier that morning. Wasn't an electronics store supposed to be next to that market? And, come to think of it, the open market hadn't been there that morning either. I shook my head. That knob on my skull was doing funny things to my memory.

Actually, I didn't see an electronics store anywhere nearby. And in a city of ten million people with cell phones glued to their ears, there should have been electronics stores everywhere.

Speaking of cell phones, I recalled that mine had been in my pocket when I chased Suh into that alley. I slid my hands into my pockets, only to find them empty. A frantic pat-down of my trench coat confirmed my suspicions, and I groaned. The kid had stolen my cell phone!

Briefly I thought about asking someone to borrow theirs, but suddenly it occurred to me that I didn't see anyone with a cell phone, an odd feat for New York City. And, actually, the ones who were paying an iota of attention to me shot me strange looks, as if I were an alien from another galaxy. My mind whirled with the possibilities – did I have something on my face? Blood? Dirt?

Then it crashed into me like a train going full-tilt. They weren't looking at my face. They were looking at my clothes.

What shocked me more was when I realized that it wasn't even because my clothes were dirty. I stopped and leaned against a dirty, wet wall, taking the time to really study their dress. Every woman who passed me wore hats that almost fully covered their short hair. The men donned fedoras and trench coats. Beneath the open coats, I caught glimpses of double-breasted vests and black ties.

No one in 2012 would dare to wear something like that. Not unless he wanted to get mugged.

What the hell was going on? For half a second, I thought Danny was playing an elaborate practical joke on me, revenge for the prank I pulled on him at Halloween last year.

But something else caught my eye, something far above the dirty, wet streets of New York City.

The skyline was different.

It stopped me in my tracks, and I stood in the middle of the sidewalk, gaping. The first thought that leapt to my mind was that terrorists had taken it out, just like they had destroyed the World Trade Center. 70 Pine Street, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building looked brand-spankin'-new. The MetLife Tower stood where it had always been standing, but others – the Bank of America Tower, the MetLife Building, and a host of other skyscrapers I'd grown accustomed to seeing on a daily basis – were gone.

What was this? I was never a man to believe in much of the supernatural. Sure, my parents dragged me to church now and then when I was growing up; we were Irish Catholic, so it was expected of us. But I was a detective. I believed in "just the facts, ma'am;" nothing more, nothing less. Logic made sense to me. Now, I saw some things in my decade as an NYPD detective that logic certainly couldn't explain, of course, but this? Was this some kind of alternate reality?

No, I decided. That prospect was far too weird. I was dreaming. I had to be dreaming. Any minute now, Danny would go into that alley and wake me up and drag me to the hospital to get my head examined.

At least, that was what I thought until I happened to glance at a newsstand outside the bodega on the corner.

It wasn't the headline that startled me, the big, bold, block letters reading "Nazis Smash, Loot and Burn Jewish Shops," although that in and of itself was more than a bit of a surprise.

It was the date right above the headline.

November 11, 1938.