AN: Thanks for the incredible response to this Snowing story! See previous chapter for important authors notes on characters and story notes.
Just a couple of notes for the last chapter and the next few. The Characters of Aaron Glover, the podcaster and Paul and Helen Santino are from Manifest and not Once characters. Another note: In this universe, Killian and Liam are not related, nor do they know one another.
Special Note: By now, those who watch Manifest, will have seen the season 3 finale. I won't say anything else in case someone hasn't seen it, but I can assure you that there will be certain changes. No decisions yet, as I'm kind of waiting to see what happens in season 4, if we get one. But yeah, I'm already gaming out how to get around a certain major character death. Just FYI.
Another Special Note: By now, most of you know that NBC made the horrible decision to cancel Manifest, despite ending season 3 on a terrible cliffhanger. The series creator says he is committed to giving the series some kind of conclusion, even if it just means a wrap up movie or something. No word yet on if anything is happening. However, if it doesn't, I will finish this story and give it some kind of conclusion. Just FYI.
This one will update bi-weekly on Monday nights. Please consider leaving a review, it is much appreciated. Here are individual responses to reviews:
Number Ten: Yep, this mysterious Major is definitely trouble. Yeah, Emma's life is about to get even more complicated. Yep, Emma and Henry are having a related Calling. Glad you're enjoying it!
Grace5231973: Yeah...I have no idea what NBC is thinking. They canceled several others as well. Mainly, their dumb Dick Wolf shows were all that survived. It's really idiotic. Yeah, Jeff Rake says he's determined to get some kind of wrap up made for the series. If not, I'll come up with some kind of ending, but I really hope we get a wrap up movie if we can't have another season(or 3). Yeah, like I said, I will figure it out if I have to. Glad you're enjoying!
Jennifer Baratta: Thanks! Glad you're enjoying it!
Ghostwriter: Yeah, Cora is the worst as usual. Glad you're enjoying it!
Sexystarwarslover: Yep, Emma had the blizzard calling so you know where this is going. Yeah, I love the show too. I really hope we get some kind of resolution. Yeah, Regina knows her mother does shady stuff. Yeah, Killian and Emma seem unable to stay away from each other. Yeah, Cora meeting with Johanna isn't suspicious at all. Yeah, David will not let the Major get his family. Glad you're enjoying!
AnonSnowing: Yeah, it was quite a finale, but I definitely have to get around that character death, which I will. Here's to hoping we at least get a wrap up movie. Nope, Cora is no angel and Regina knows what her mother is capable of. Yeah, the plane was a blessing in a way, for Regina and for Henry, because they were able to save him. Yep, interrupted...but they got right back to it, lol. Yep, Cora is a monster and wants to destroy Margaret. David is determined to protect their son from the Major and I think we know where Emma's calling is going. You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed it!
Lightning in a Bottle
Chapter 33: Contrails, Pt 1
Flashback
The Plane
Captain Liam Jones checked the readings and flew them through the cloudy skies. As a veteran pilot, cloudy skies were nothing new to him and routine. The radar was clear too and his co-pilot returned, taking his seat.
"The lady in 7A is complaining that the blankets aren't hypo-allergenic," he said in mild annoyance. Liam rolled his eyes.
"Does she realize she's in a pressurized cabin, breathing recycled air full of dead skin cells?" he quipped, as he suddenly saw red on the radar.
"Where did this storm come from?" his co-pilot asked, as they were suddenly faced with dark clouds and violent lightning. It was massive and appeared literally out of nowhere. Liam began to flip switches and prepared to try to evade it, but it was huge and he didn't know if that was possible. Making a snap decision, Liam increased their speed and his co-pilot looked at him in alarm.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"We're not going around it...we're going through it," Liam replied, with determination lining his face.
"Are you crazy?" he asked.
"It's the only way," Liam responded, as violent turbulence racked and shuddered the plane, leaving pilot and co-pilot wondering if they had just doomed a plane full of people to death. But almost as quickly as the storm and lightning had appeared, it was over and they came through it. The turbulence ceased and he stabilized the plane.
"See...back to smooth sailing," Liam said. But he didn't know how wrong he was at that moment.
Later after the landing
"I told you...but I will tell you again. This storm was a monster...and it came out of nowhere. There was lightning like I had never seen before and I'm a twenty year veteran pilot!" Liam exclaimed.
"We understand that, Mr. Jones, but other than your actions up in the sky, there are no other anomalies," Vance said. Liam scoffed.
"You don't know what happened up there any better than I do...so I guess it's easiest just to blame the pilot, right!?" he exclaimed.
"No one wants to blame you, Mr. Jones, but your evasive maneuvers were highly suspect and a bit of a maverick move," Vance reiterated.
"I didn't cause this! No time for us passed up there! Whatever this is...it's not me," Liam insisted. But it didn't matter. He could tell. His reputation as a pilot was in shambles and his career was over. He was going to be the scapegoat for this.
Once they finally let him go, he walked out and sat in a chair. It was then that a little boy approached him.
"Excuse me...you're the pilot, right?" he asked. Liam managed a small smile for him.
"Sure am, kiddo," he said.
"My Dad said sometimes that pilots give out their wings to passengers," Henry said expectantly. He smiled regrettably.
"Sorry kid...I don't have any wings. I'm afraid they've been clipped," he replied.
Present Day
"Good morning, my handsome chef extraordinaire," Margaret purred, as she put her arms around her husband's waist, as he made them breakfast.
"Yeah...back to no job, so I can at least make breakfast for my beautiful family," he replied, as he kissed her and finished the pancakes and they all sat down to eat quickly.
"You'll find something...I know it," Margaret insisted.
"Yeah…I'm going to put some feelers out today," he replied.
"But you won't have time, Dad," Henry said. They looked at him with questions in their eyes.
"Why's that, sweetheart?" Margaret asked.
"Because Dad is going to be busy helping the pilot," Henry replied, as they continued to look at him. He rolled his eyes.
"The pilot from the plane...he needs your help, Dad," Henry insisted.
"How do you know that?" David asked. Henry shrugged.
"Just a feeling," he replied, as he dug into his pancakes. David and Margaret exchanged a glance.
"Okay...guess I'll reach out to Captain Jones and make sure everything's okay with him," David promised. Margaret smiled.
"My husband...the hero," she gushed, as she started eating.
"Mmm...my husband, the master of pancakes too," she added, as she ate in earnest.
"But if he really does need my help...I better see if your Aunt Emma can watch you since there's no school today and Olive is busy with her climb," David said.
"I'll text her...I'm sure she'll be fine with it," Henry replied. David and Margaret shared an amused smile and Henry got a reply right away.
"Yes...she says I can come over!" he said, really excited about the prospect of spending time with his Aunt at her new apartment. David's phone rang at that moment and he answered it.
"Hello?" he answered.
"David...this is Captain Liam Jones," he said. His eyes widened slightly.
"Captain Jones...what can I do for you?" he asked, exchanging another glance with his wife. By now, they shouldn't have been surprised by Henry's ability to know things before they happened, but it was still startling at times.
"I'm not responsible for the plane disappearing...and I think I can prove it. With your help," the Captain said.
"Of course...what do you need?" David asked.
"It's something I need to show you...at the airstrip. I'll be by in twenty minutes to pick you up," he said, as the line went dead.
"Well...guess I'm headed to the airstrip with Captain Jones," David replied.
"I'll drop Henry off at Emma's on my way," Margaret said, as she kissed his cheek.
"Make sure you're careful though. No more disappearing for years," she said. He smiled at her.
"Don't worry...no more of that," he promised, as they cleaned up quickly and were off for the day.
With some free time in her schedule that morning, Regina went about digging into the medical database for Eva Blanchard's records. Thankfully, even the old records from years ago and the deceased had been digitized and she came across them fairly easily.
"Okay...cause of death," she muttered, as she browsed the record and she frowned when the cause of death read inconclusive. That was very strange, considering that she noticed no formal autopsy was done. In matters that were inconclusive, it was standard procedure to have an autopsy completed. However, this was Leopold Blanchard that they were dealing with. Had he paid the medical examiner off, that would have been the end of it. She was under no illusion that half this hospital had been funded by Blanchard Investments. She bit her bottom lip and looked up the doctor on record. It was a Dr. Harold Lydgate and he had passed away a few years ago. Her heart sank and then she realized that all his files were likely in the archive. However, it was a huge undertaking.
"Excuse me, Dr. Mills?" a young woman asked.
"Yes?" she asked.
"Hi...I'm Margo West and I'm your new assistant," she replied.
"New assistant?" Regina asked. The woman nodded.
"Research assistant...there should have been an email about it," she replied. Regina sighed and smiled.
"I'm sorry...I have not even checked it this morning," she said, as she ushered her in.
"It's an honor to work with you...your cancer breakthrough is nothing short of amazing," Margot said.
"Thank you...I'm afraid that what I really need help with right now is combing through some old, dusty records though. It's very boring," she warned. Margot smiled.
"I'd be happy to help with anything," she replied.
"Okay...don't say I didn't warn you. I need to look through Dr. Lydgate's files from 1989," Regina said.
"1989?" Margot asked. Regina winced.
"I know it's weird and was a long time ago...but there is a patient that died that year and the family still has questions. I'm helping them," Regina said.
"What patient?" Margot asked.
"Eva Blanchard," Regina replied.
"Okay...let's dig in," Margot said, as they started researching.
At the station that morning, Killian stalked up to her, having just discovered the unsettling news.
"Find her," Emma heard again, as she had the same Calling and then brushed it off, as she saw his face.
"Why did you change shifts?" he questioned.
"It's for the best...it's something I needed to do," she replied.
"Emma…" he protested.
"What happened was a mistake," she argued.
"No...it wasn't and you know it. We belong together," he insisted.
"No...we don't and I won't be the other woman. I got a second chance at life and I'm pretty sure breaking up a marriage is the last thing I should be doing with that second chance," Emma replied.
"Emma...you know I would have never married anyone if I hadn't thought you to be dead," he whispered.
"I know," she said, sharing a sad gaze with him.
"None of this fair...but I still can't do this," she replied, as she gathered her stuff.
"My shift is over and I'm watching Henry for David and MM," she said, as she eagerly escaped the station and headed for her car, leaving him dumbfounded and hurt.
David got into the car with Liam and he drove off.
"Here," Liam said, as he handed David a huge binder.
"What is all this?" he asked.
"The official report on 828," Liam said. David's eyes widened, as he started leafing through all the information.
"This is incredible…" David said in amazement, as he looked through it until they arrived at the airstrip.
"So...why are we here?" he asked.
"You'll see," Liam replied, as he rolled the window down.
"Hey...time traveler," the guard at the gate said, as he saw him and signed him.
"Maybe today you'll do it again," he said, as he waved them through. David snorted.
"At least he doesn't ask if the aliens were nice," Liam said. David nodded.
"True," he agreed, as they parked and got out of the car and David followed him into the building where the flight simulator was.
"I've been coming here almost every day since we got back and putting in the exact conditions in that binder," Liam said, as David took a seat in the co-pilot seat.
"Strap in," Liam said, as David did so and Liam started the simulator up, before inputting the weather conditions. David was amazed to see the sky darken on the screen before them and become thick with dark clouds.
"Wow…I figured we hit something big that day, but it looks like it was a massive storm.
"It was...but this barely qualifies as weather," Liam said. David's brow furrowed in confusion.
"I don't understand," David replied.
"It means the information in that binder is fake," Liam said, as he looked ahead.
"The lightning I saw that day was like nothing I had ever seen before," the pilot continued, before looking at David.
"The government didn't start covering up what happened to 828 on the day the plane came back," Liam said, pausing for a beat.
"They started covering it up on the day we disappeared," he added, shocking David to the core.
"Hey kid!" Emma said, as she opened the door and let her nephew and sister-in-law in. Henry hugged her and then made a beeline for her living room to ditch his coat and go for the video games.
"Thanks for watching him today," Margaret said.
"Are you kidding? I love it and believe me, I could use the distraction," Emma replied.
"That bad, huh?" Margaret asked. The blonde sighed.
"If you call sleeping with your married ex bad," she muttered. Margaret's eyes widened and she hugged her.
"Oh Emma…" she soothed.
"It was a huge mistake and I told him it can't happen again. I told him I can't be the reason that he ruins his marriage," Emma said.
"But you still love him and he loves you," Margaret replied.
"It doesn't matter," Emma argued. Margaret cocked her head to the side, considering that.
"Maybe if it was you guys...I can see that. I could see it if you moved on and David came back...I could see you ending a relationship with someone else and choosing David. I know you would and he would too," she said.
"But we're not you guys. We're not soul mates and unfortunately, it took making a huge mistake for me to see that," she added.
"I'm so sorry Emma," Margaret offered, as they hugged again.
"It's fine...I can move on now and he can hopefully repair his marriage. Milah doesn't need to know about what happened and I already switched my shifts so we're working opposite each other. It will be a clean break," she insisted.
"I hope so...for your sake. I want you to be happy," Margaret said. She nodded.
"Being the other woman won't make me happy, no matter how much I still love Killian," she insisted.
"I get that," she said. Emma rolled her eyes.
"No you don't," the blonde teased. Margaret nodded.
"Okay…I don't. I could never give David up or move on for that matter, but I know you can and you will," she insisted.
"Thanks...and for the record, I love that you and my brother are like that and sort of my same age weirdo parents," she replied.
"Thanks…I think," Margaret said, as they shared another hug.
"Be good for your Aunt Emma today and please make sure he gets a little homework done and don't let him rot in front of the TV all day," Margaret pleaded.
"Okay...love you Mom," Henry called.
"Love you you too, honey...and you," she said to Emma, as she left for work and Emma closed the door.
"So pizza and Mario Kart?" Henry asked. She snickered.
"Get an hour of homework in and then yes, we'll order that pizza and I'll beat you at Mario Kart," Emma said. He scoffed.
"We'll see," Henry replied, as he proceeded to get his homework out of the way.
After a morning spent at the simulator with Captain Jones, David promised to take the binder to do some research. Liam was a pilot, but he wasn't a numbers guy like David and couldn't make sense of all the raw data in the binder.
David took the binder home and proceeded to call the co-pilot. The co-pilot walked him through the story of what happened that night in the air and it matched up exactly with Captain Jones' story of what went on in the cockpit that night. After confirming that story, he jumped in the car and went over to Emma's. She let him in and greeted him.
"Hey...there's pizza in the kitchen if you're hungry," she said.
"Thanks...hey buddy," he called, as he spotted his son playing a game.
"Hey Dad!" Henry called.
"Did he do any homework?" David asked, looking at his sister. She shrugged.
"Some, but you can't expect him to come to my house and do homework," she scoffed.
"Fair enough," he said, as he put the binder on the table.
"What is that?" she asked.
"The official Senate commission report for flight 828," he replied.
"How the hell did you get that?" she questioned.
"Captain Jones...he took me to the simulator this morning and input the weather data that's in this binder, supposedly the exact conditions from that night," he replied.
"Okay? And that means what?" she asked.
"He said that the weather data in this book is barely weather to him...it's missing the real conditions from that night, particularly the incredible lightning. He's a seasoned pilot and said he'd never seen lightning like that before," he replied.
"So...the data is fake?" she asked. He nodded.
"Captain Jones thinks they started covering up 828 when we disappeared...not when we came back," he replied. She thought for a moment.
"Okay...but why?" she asked.
"That's my question too, but then I looked through the rest of this and caught something that Captain Jones missed," he replied.
"That's because you're a nerd and only you would find something in all...this," she joked, as she looked at the pages upon pages of data.
"Funny...but in 2014, shortly after the plane disappeared, there was a meteorologist that was supposed to testify before congress, but he didn't show and resigned the day after," he replied.
"A little odd...but are you sure we can trust the Captain? I mean...have you ever thought that maybe he is responsible?" Emma asked.
"Henry said I was supposed to help him, Em," David replied.
"David…" she started to protest.
"It's a Calling...you know Henry gets them differently. And besides, how does one man make an entire plane disappear for five and a half years, where none of us age or even felt the passage of time?" he asked and she had to admit that he was probably right about that.
"This is bigger than all of us, Emma," he insisted.
"Yeah...so do you know what happened to this meteorologist?" she asked, as he looked further through the information.
"Looks like he took early retirement upstate. Shouldn't be too hard to locate him," he replied, as he took out his phone and prepared to call Liam.
"David...just be careful. This Captain is on a mission and doesn't seem to care if he self-destructs in the process to prove whatever he's trying to prove. He won't hesitate to take others down with him," she warned.
"I'll be careful...but I have to help him. He's just trying to clear his name," David replied.
"I get that...but not everyone is worthy of your help," Emma advised.
"I'm older...I'm supposed to give you advice," he argued.
"But I'm the cop and I'm trained to see around corners that your good heart doesn't," she reminded him. He nodded.
"Point taken. Here, hang onto the binder, just in case. Put it somewhere safe," he said, as he hugged her and Henry quickly. Emma went and put the binder away in one of her drawers.
"See you at home later, buddy," he called, as he was out the door and Emma sighed.
"Don't worry, he'll be okay," Henry said, with certainty.
"Yeah...so ready for that rematch?" she asked.
"Why? So I can smoke you again?" he countered.
"Oh, you're so going to eat those words, kid," she promised, as she joined him for a Mario Kart rematch