Disclaimer: I do not own DarkWing Duck or any other Disney character.

If you haven't read "The Path Chosen", this story isn't going to make sense to you.

This fic derives directly from the original story. It's a look into one of the DarkWing realities that could have been. This is the story of the one called Tracker.

Tracker's Story Part 5

Drake was sitting on the sofa with Morgana drinking his second cup of coffee. In light of the circumstances, he'd decided it was time to tell her everything. "So basically, reality, at least for me, is out of sync." he finished his explanation and watched his wifes face with concern.

Her expression was one of disbelief. "Oh Dark, it doesn't seem real. How can things not be as they were meant. Everything seems so right." She placed her hand on her slightly risen stomach. The same fear that Drake had had now crept into her thoughts. She looked at her husband with alarm. "Dark, you don't think..."

"No, I don't! I can't believe that this baby wasn't meant to be. It just seems so right!" Drake said assuringly. He slipped an arm around her shoulder "I don't know what part of my life is out of the Time Continuum Pattern, or what ever you choose to call it. Besides, even if things weren't suppose to happen this way, who's to say we can't leave things the way they are. I know Bellum has a way of blowing things out of proportion. For all we know, my alteration of the reality, may have been getting a Coo-Coo-Cola instead of a rootbeer last week at the drive through!"

Morgana tried to smile "I'm sure it's something like that. Strange that I didn't sense anything though.."

"There you see. If anything was really wrong, you'd probably know it before I did." Drake said trying to reassure her. "Come on Morg. It's the Christmas season after all. Don't worry about anything other than what we're going to name our baby."

She smiled more sincerely this time "I've been thinking about that for days. What do you think of Aila if it's a girl?"

Drake grinned "I think it's a perfect name for a little girl." He looked up toward the second story "Speaking of little girls. I think we have something else to deal with right now." He wanted to get off the entire Alternate-reality-thing and moving Gosalyn into the little room was as good as an excuse as any. "You'd better call LaunchPad for me." he said standing up and heading for the staircase. "He's suppose to help me get Gosalyn's bed set up in the new room."

Gosalyn was sitting by the window staring out at the gloomy winter weather. It was cloudy and cold. The trees and the ground were barren, but there was no sign of snow. Outside her window was the view of mud and dried broken leaves, no green was left. There was nothing cheerful for her this season, There was as much gloom in her home as there was outside it's doors. The holidays were not bight at all.

She heard her door open and turned to see her father walk in. "He didn't even knock" She thought bitterly before turning her back to him to look back out the window. the walls of her room were now bare save a few protruding nails that had been used to hang pictures. The boxes were piled up on the floor, crudely packed with Gosalyn's belongings.

"Well let's get crack'en kiddo. These boxes aren't going to move themselves. Of coarse, some of the stuff you bring home, maybe they can." he chuckled in an attempt to lighten the tension in the air. No such luck. She barely shot him a cold look that would have scared Negaduck before snatching up one of the smaller boxes and stomping out of the room with it.

She clumped into the little room at the end of the hall to which she had been exiled. Upon entering her new cramped quarters, she evaluated it's condition. The walls were covered with old faded wallpaper that was seriously out dated. It was stained in too many places to count. The window was small and round like a porthole on a ship and it didn't even open. The carpet was flat and dull. Like the wallpaper, it was covered in stains. The whole room had a musty smell to it. Of course it did! Up until now it had been used for a storage room! The room wasn't even as big as their bathroom – and there wasn't even a closet! Most of all, it was freezing! Her eyes fell on the small vent on the floor. It was caked in dust and cobwebs. It had never worked for some reason and her father had never bothered to have it fixed. Why should he, they were only going to use it for storage. "Oh yeah, you fixed it up real nice just like you promised dad!" she thought bitterly "Then again, you promised you'd never take my room away from me!"

She threw her box recklessly on the floor, not caring if she broke anything. Spinning quickly on her heals she marched from back towards her old room for another box, passing her father on the way.

Drake saw the anger in her eyes as she went by him, not bothering to spare him a glance. He really didn't want her to be mad at him, especially not here a Christmas time. But they all had to do things that they didn't want to in life. He thought it was an important lesson for his daughter to learn.

He stepped into the room and looked around. Somehow he didn't see it in the same light Gosalyn did. It was small, but she'd get use to that. The wallpaper was not that attractive, but slap a few posters up, nobody would be the wiser. The carpet had stains, but as messy as Gosalyn was, stains were inevitable anyway, so that didn't really matter. It was a bit cold, but she could leave her door open and the heat could come in from the hall. He'd get around to calling somebody to come out and look at the furnace. They'd get heat in the room sooner or later. Yep, he didn't see what was so bad about the little room at all. It had it's charm. Gosalyn would learn to like it, just given some time.

LaunchPad showed up and he and Drake undertook the task of taking Gosalyn's bed down and setting it back up in her new room. Unfortunately, after the bed was put up and her dresser moved in, there wasn't enough room for all her stuff, or even half of it for that matter! Drake, as usual had a simplistic answer to the whole thing.

He looked around the hallway at the boxes waiting to be taken into the little room. Morgana and Gosalyn stood next to the banister watching the two men trying to organize everything, without success. Then Drake got what he thought, at the time, was a brilliant idea..

"You know,you really don't need all this stuff anyways. You've got enough here to start your own toy store." He picked up a baseball and looked at it. "It's not like you ever played with all this stuff anyway. We'll pick out a couple of things to keep and the rest of the stuff we could give to the Children's Hospital. It is Christmas time after all!"

Gosalyn couldn't believe he was suggesting that, on top of everything else, they give her stuff away. He wasn't even asking her what she wanted, he had decided for himself that it was the right thing to do! She felt the hurt and anger swelling up inside.

For some strange reason, Drake thought Gosalyn would agree with him and would be happy to give all her personal belongings away to charity.

Instead of a look of excitement on Gosalyn's face, as he for some reason expected, he saw tears flood her eyes. "I hate you! If you think giving stuff away is so noble, why don't you give your own stuff away! You talk about making sacrifices, but I'm the only one having to give up anything! You don't even care what I want! It's all about that dumb baby! I HATE YOU!!!!!!" she screamed in a voice full of rage and pain as she turned to run. She charged down the stairs and out the door without even stopping for her coat slamming the door loudly as she went.

Drake now stood in the doorway of the little room in a state of shock. Gosalyn's words had cut into him. She had been mad at him before but had never said that she hated him – ever.

"Gee DW, I think you said the wrong thing." LaunchPad said meekly, stating the

all too obvious, as always.

Morgana moved to her husbands side, knowing that he meant well with his suggestion. "Giving her unused toys to the Children's Hospital for Christmas is a good idea Dark. But

you just suggested it at the wrong time. She feels like we're taking everything away from her all of the sudden. She's still getting use to my being here all the time. She's had to learn to share you with me. Now the baby is coming and we took her room from her. The toys can wait for another time can't they? Maybe she'll feel more like letting go of some of her possessions after she's settled into her new room."

"Well what are we suppose to do with them until then? There's just no room in that tiny bedroom for all her stuff." Drake pointed out.

"Well, we don't have to move all her stuff out of the old room right away. We aren't going to start fixing it up for a nursery until after Christmas. We can leave a lot of her stuff in there for now."

Drake gave a surrendering sigh "Alright Morg. I guess we can leave some of the stuff in the old room for now." He picked up one of the boxes to take it back to Gosalyn's old room.

A few minutes later, Drake and LaunchPad had carried most of Gosalyn's belongings back to the old bedroom. "oh my back is killing me." Drake said rubbing his soar back. He glanced around at all the boxes stacked up around the room. "I never realized Gosalyn had so much junk!" He reached into a box and and pulled out an unopened pack of Wacky Puddy. "Look at this. A lot of this stuff, she hasn't bothered to open."

LaunchPad took a doll, still in it's original packaging, out of one of the boxes. "Hey this is the QuckyPatch doll you got her for her first Birthday after you adopted her. "It hasn't even been open, that makes it a collectors item, doesn't it?"

Drake took the box from LaunchPad and looked at it. "Yeah, I guess it does. These things are worth some money too." he paused and thought about when he'd bought it for the little high spirited tomboy's Birthday. A doll - for Gosalyn? "What was I thinking?"

"Hey you know something Drake. I bet Gosalyn could sell some of this stuff for a pretty penny. She'd probably be willing to let it go for a little profit."

"Thats' actually a great idea LP!" Drake praised his friend.

"Yeah and she probably won't hate you so much then." LaunchPad blurted out without thinking (nothing new for LaunchPad, of course).

Drakes face fell at the thought of Gosalyn screaming that she hated him and running off.

"Yeah.." he said dully. He dropped the doll back into a box. "I know she hates the idea of giving up her room and I know Morgana and I are so preoccupied with the idea of the baby coming..." his face lit up at the thought of the baby. He couldn't help it. There was a time in his life, he never believed he'd actually have a baby of his own – for that matter, he had never believed he be married some day!

"I know DW. I'm excited about it too and it's not even my baby!" LaunchPad said picking up on Drake's excitement. "I think maybe Gos just kinda feels left out of everything ya know."

"Yeah, I guess that's it. Maybe there's something Morgana and I could do to get Gosalyn involved in the baby's coming. If she felt a part of all this, she might come round." Drake glanced down at the boxes of toys and nicknacks Gosalyn had compiled since she come to live with him. An idea crept into his mind. "Hey, I have a great idea of how to make Gosalyn feel a part of all this!" he exclaimed grabbing up one of the boxes "Come on LP, "Lets get this stuff Loaded into my car."

Later that evening, Gosalyn came home, shivering from having been out in the cold so long without a coat. She had been wandering aimlessly around town, sulking and wishing

that there wasn't going to be a baby – ever.

Drake and Morgana were sitting on the sofa watching television when she slipped in the front door. "Gosalyn, are you hungry?" Morgana asked as the little girl jogged quickly up the staircase without bothering to answer her stepmother. She walked passed her old room with a heavy heart and marched into the small room at the end of the hall she now occupied. Opening the door, she looked around. She loathed that room. With the bed set up and the dresser moved in, she barely had room to move around in. She noticed that most of her stuff was infact gone. Her father did what he said, no doubt, he'd given her stuff away, just like he had her room. "I really do hate him!"

To be continued....