The past blurred across the screen. Timelines swirled together in a haze as green light flashed again, and again, and again.

Danny floated in front of the display, attention fixed on the images being shown. His legs were crossed as he sat on emptiness. An elbow rested on his knee, chin leaning into his cupped palm and he frowned at what was showing over and

over

and

o

v

e

r

again.

He'd asked Clockwork to turn off the sound soon after the scenes had started to play. It was bad enough to watch this happen on a seemingly endless loop - he didn't need to hear his own dying scream a thousand times as well.

His legs tingled with the static of pins and needles. "How many timelines are there?"

Clockwork tapped his staff against the floor and the image stilled at the exact moment that the portal's green flash filled the screen. "Millions."

Danny pressed his mouth closed and took a deep breath through his nose. The exhalation was shakier than he would have liked, but if Clockwork noticed his trembling lower lip then he didn't comment on it.

"I asked you to show me every possibility, but I keep seeing the same damned thing. Isn't there one where I never went into the portal?"

Clockwork sighed with the sound of a gentle chime. He waved his staff and a new silent picture took over the screen - one with a very human Danny climbing up the lab stairs with his two friends. Sam clutched her camera in her hands, Danny's white HAZMAT suit was carelessly draped over the back of a chair, and the portal was nothing more than a lifeless hole that burrowed into the wall.

The Danny watching in Clockwork's tower leaned closer with wide eyes. "Can you give me that?" he breathed.

"No, Daniel."

As he spoke, the Danny on the screen doubled over and grabbed his chest. He dropped to his knees, his friends shouting and his parents running down the stairs at the commotion. By the time they reached him he was already limp on the floor, eyes closed and breathing gone.

The screen went blank, and it took a moment for Danny to speak through the fingers that he had pressed over his mouth. "I don't understand."

"It was your time." The statement was simple, and the most direct explanation that Danny had ever received from him. "Death was ready for you, with or without the portal."

"So I'm screwed no matter what?" Tears tugged at his eyelids, cold when they should have been hot. "What was the point of the portal then?!"

Clockwork's cape rustled with his shrug. "It was a doorway. Every time you ignored the portal, you died. Every time you explored the portal, it opened a door to another life."

Danny shook his head and swatted at tears that had begun to trickle down his face. "This isn't a life," he choked. "Not like what everyone else has."

"When one door closes, another door opens," Clockwork reminded him. "Your parents created the doorway for you to survive. Be grateful, and make the most of your second chance."

"There isn't a single timeline where I don't die?"

Clockwork didn't answer, and the ghost child hid his face in his hands and wept.