A.N.

Thanks for all the reviews, everyone. I hope you're still enjoying the fanfic, it'll be one more chapter and then it's probably a wrap or a wrap with an epilogue.

X

In a relationship, after that first phase of being in love with or attracted to another person, you start working with what you got. You hope to compliment each other. A relationship is a lot like those little windows, those portals into Dream World. You have many doors before you but you close some of them down because you commit yourself to one person. This is why Morgana felt suffocated, as you must understand by now, because it seemed to her that too many doors had been closed and that only one new one had opened. She had Darkwing but felt he was not committed to her while she was wasting her life.

Of course, she wasn't really wasting it but it felt that way and that feeling got stronger and stronger. She had been used to a very different life with very different people in it. The door that had opened was a nice and pleasant one, a peak into a real family life, a warmer one than she had had back home. Though Gosalyn was not Drake's real daughter and had only lived with him for a year, he took care of her as if she had always been around. He continuously tried to keep her safe. He never spoiled her but he was never too strict either. Morgana was the one that was redundant and at some point, started to act like that as well. It's not that he did not want her there. It's that partly, she also consciously moved herself to the background. The door was open and she was trying to close it. You see, her insecurity got the better of her and now they were here, looking for Gosalyn, who was not quite her daughter, with a man, who was not quite her husband.

That's life. You open one door and you close the next. You ask yourself tons of things. Should you settle down with him, this man who already has a kid, a room mate and a full-time job? Can you live with someone who never ever can give you what you want, this pure, utter devotion? Then again, is that what you always wanted, really?

And to think of what your parents will say who had such different expectations, who expect you to move into their mansion when they pass away, who dream of you to getting a graduate degree in magic like your aunt – you got her brain! - and teach at some magical university somewhere or start a career in this or that. Maybe meet some monster boy at some point, hey, it's not too late yet, you need to get pregnant, like your cousin, then that PhD in magic is overrated anyway because that's the-most-important-thing, gettingkidsofyourown.

Parents have such high hopes for you. They want to see what is best for you and that means having more than just some duck that patrols the streets at night with a ten-year old pig-tailed daughter. Still, Morgana knew that there was no pleasing mom and dad in this anyway. At least she took care of their second house well. And there was no pressure of marrying. Yet.

Doors, doors, doors. She passed many of them, all kinds of jobs and forms of education, kids, marriage, family, different houses. Life is filled with opportunities. The red drops of blood were all doors to different ideas and different prospects and different alternative universes. Each dream was a path. In the end, she knew, you have to make a choice and stick with it. By now, she was convinced that she had chosen him and Gosalyn. The drops formed images. One door felt the best, intuitively, it sounded and felt like Gosalyn and there were some fragments that gave it away. They went in.

0

The worst dream he had ever had, had not been the one in which he had died. It had been this one. He cradled Gosalyn in his arms but she was already turning cold. They were too late. Each time, this nightmare had been the same. He had been too late to stop any villain, Taurus Bulba, Megavolt, it didn't matter. In some dreams it was an accident, in others, not so much. This time, it seemed awfully real. They had ventured into a new dream and it felt sickening. She was like a heavy rock in his arms, pulling him down. She was heavy and at the same time, a bit wet. Maybe those were his own tears. He was too damn late. Morgana seemed distant.

'Use a spell.' He could barely speak. Did she hear? Did it matter?

'It's not working.' Her hand touched his shoulder. It hurt.

'A different one.'

'I'm so sorry, Dark.'

'It all seemed like… so okay… like, that…that we had pulled through.' His hand trembled more than his voice.

'I know.

'Is this real? Is this her?'

'I'm not sure yet.' He saw Morgana playing with the ring on her finger. 'I'm just not sure. I'm imagining her alive. Help me. I can't do it alone, I'm too… affected. I can't concentrate.'

Gosalyn did not open her eyes. The setting was empty, no videogame sounds, not even any comic strips on the floor. There was an outline of a bed and some toys. They seemed abstract like an unfinished thought or dream of Gosalyn herself.

'Try, Morgana, try.' The environment got emptier until there was nothing left but the three, possibly two, of them. Morgana forced Gosalyn's hands from him and closed her eyes. They were silent. Sometimes, it seemed as if Gosalyn was breathing. It lasted an eternity.

Then, that same cackling as before echoed through the room.

'This is not a dream, in case you didn't know,' Nodoff grinned. 'I killed her off, just like that. How do you like that, Darkwing Duck? I don't want to see anyone entering my world anymore. You outsiders, it's all your own fault. '

He clenched onto Gosalyn harder.

'If you hadn't meddled with our affairs, she'd still have been alive.'

'This is not real,' Morgana muttered, snapping her fingers. 'Let it go. Promise me you let it go. She's near.'

'Morgana, it is real. You're the one who's wrong.' Gosalyn did not breathe in his arms. Her white limbs hung over his purple cape as fallen feathers.

'Don't you see that Nodoff is tricking us? Help me think! Help me imagine, Dark.'

'She's gone. It's what I had feared.'

'Exactly, as you had feared,' Morgana snapped. 'You are locked up with our own fears and insecurities. I know how real a dream can feel. Yours had felt so natural to me that it constantly started to haunt me, like I'd lived it. But it's not real. It shouldn't affect us.'

Darkwing let go of Gosalyn, just like that, but what she saw that her words had made no impression on him. Instead, he was angry and about to take it out on Nodoff.

'These are our inner fears. That's why they have such an impact, Dark, if you just…' She saw his cape fluttering and knew she had to do something, somehow.

'It's over Nodoff, I mean it.'

The ghoul cackled. 'Oh, come off it, there's nothing you can do.'

'I can. Because right now I'm filled with so much rage that I can imagine just about anything happening to you. And because we are here, it will.'

Nodoff started to stretch and bend like a magic twisty. His body turned into weird leaps and shapes.

'This is not just her dream, it's my dream too. It doesn't only take magic to warp it, it takes strength. And I have loads of that, thanks to you.'

Nodoff was hit in all kinds of ways. This time, Darkwing seemed more like Negaduck than ever. Morgana ran to Gosalyn's body, hoping to revive her while Darkwing was fighting Nodoff. She concentrated and worked her magic by imagining Gosalyn alive. Eek and Squeek circled around them but eventually, Eek flew down. He showed his support by stretching his wing out to Gosalyn's hand. Morgana's eyes lit up. Her magic was lessening but with her last strength, she woke the girl. It had been Gosalyn after all. Not some cheap trick, but the actual child they both cared about.

When she heard Gosalyn's voice, she started to feel feeble and lost it. She was so utterly drained it didn't take more than a few seconds. The world started to flip and bend and became blacker. She turned the ring several times and found herself at the door to Dream World. She opened it and blacked out. The line had been cut. Another door closed.

0

'Tricked you,' Nodoff told Darkwing. 'No one dies here. Well, not that fast, at least.'

'Hold the funnies, Nodoff,' the hero said, turning Nodoff smaller and eventually, imprisoning him in an hourglass. He could probably get out any time when he wanted to.

'We're leaving, Nodoff,' Darkwing said, moving to Gosalyn. 'Wait, what happened to Morgana?'

'Her subconscious couldn't take all this anymore. It tends to happen, you get lost. For your sake I hope she could envision a portal and get out.'

'And if she won't, you'll be the first to find her.'

'I wouldn't hurt her,' Nodoff said. 'Much.'

'Dad, just leave him, we need to go and find Morgana!' Gosalyn said. Her fighter's spirit had always amazed him. She was already so cheerful despite everything that had happened. He hugged her until she pushed him away.

Eventually, they both reached the door through the fog. The bats had led the way.