A/n: The reference is to Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol'.

Love Forever After

There was the sound of yet another volley of enemy weapons even closer. Grizlykoff flung himself to the ground with the rest of his comrades.

"Alright, men, get it together we'll make a stand here!" The voice of their platoon leader, Harris, commanded.

"Belay that order, men. Stand down, soldiers!"
"You traitor, Mallard!"

"Lookaround you, Harris! We're outnumbered, outgunned outmatched, outmanoeuvred and you want us all to stand here and be target practice? What good are we if we're all dead? You're emotionally compromised." Mallard quacked back. "I don't consider you fit for duty, and neither does the majority of the company!" He said louder so everyone could hear him as the sound of gunfire grew closer still. "Right men?"

"Koff; don't just stand there." Commander Harris growled. "Are you with me or these insurgents?"
Grizlykoff took in the numbers for and against standing in their respective groups behind Mallard and Harris. "It is democratic, it is a vote. It is no longer yours or my decision."
"Military is a chain of command! There is no vote! I am the commander of this platoon! You follow my orders!"

"Yah, sir, you were placed in command, that is true." Grizlykoff said. "But we run out of time." Grizlykoff rationalised unhappily. "If we stay divided we will all die."
"He's right; we don't have much choice, sir." Ulrich Pekking shrugged from Harris's side. "It's a vote with guns."

"Glad you see the sense in it, Peck." They turned their heads as the bold duck covered in soot and mud stepped up between them, "As called by vote." Mallard glanced at Grizlykoff, before returning his attention to Harris. "You are relieved, Commander Harris."
"I won't forget this."

"Alright!" Mallard said loudly to the group. "Everyone get down below through the man hole on the double! You're to head south and regroup back at the base. Koff, you won't fit down that plughole so that means you're topside with me. Our job is to give our comrades the best chance to escape. Let's circle 'round behind those mutts and show 'em what for."

Shots rang out from the side street. Grizlykoff saw a large chunk of stone flying off the wall above them. "Look out!" He barrelled Mallard aside. With a blinding pain the stone came down over the top of him and everything went black.

Grizlykoff woke up in bed. "Where am I?" He looked around the room.

"You're in observation, Agent. Remember?" Doctor Sara Bellum was hovering at the computer station nearby.
He felt the electrodes stuck to his fur. "Yes, I remember better." He paused, thinking about the final battle at Ducklehoff from long ago with Harris and Mallard and raised his hand to his head. Under his fur, he could feel the scarring from where the masonry had hit him. He closed his eyes, but try as he might he couldn't remember a thing about how he'd gotten out of Ducklehoff alive. He did remember the hospital afterwards, but not of getting brought in. "But still not everything am I remembering."

"You were saying how you saw a ghost in your apartment." Bellum sat down on the visitor's chair beside his bed. "Do you still remember the ghost, sir?"
"Ach, I was not seeing real ghost!" Grizlykoff replied, shocked at getting so severely misunderstood. "I was saying how Darkwing Duck was being like ghost."
"Like ... dredging up a forgotten memory from the past, maybe?"

"Yes." He sighed in relief, relaxing back onto the pillows. "Darkwing Duck. From twenty-seven years ago."
"Oh, no, this can't be correct, sir." Bellum advised firmly. "Darkwing Duck has young bones, I should know; I've set a few of them myself. He couldn't be an adult twenty-seven years ago. And he certainly wouldn't be saving people as a hatchling."
"No, that is true." Grizlykoff frowned at the mirth in Doctor Bellum's eyes.

"I'm sorry, Agent Grizlykoff, but I think you're getting your memories mixed up together because you're tired. The best thing for you right now is to rest, sir."
"Ja." Grizlykoff picked up the glass of water on the stand beside him, drank, and then set it down again with another thought. "What is this he say before?"

"Sir?"
"Darkwing Duck. He say 'I am the ghost of Christmas present', why did he say this you suppose?"
Bellum mused, "Darkwing likes to distract his opponents by associating himself with annoying things."
"Yes, but what does it mean?"
"You mean the Christmas story?"

"I mean the ghost of present."
"In the story the ghost of the present followed the ghost from the past. There isn't a great deal of difference between the ghosts. Well, not at least as far as I recall the story. It was all just a case of logical progression to me."

Grizlykoff thought about that for a moment. "That does not sound disruptive."
"Tell that to the protagonist." She chuckled.

Doctor Bellum grew serious again. "It was just some arbitrary scare verse of Darkwing's, sir, meant to put Harris off his game. You know how he is; he wouldn't have put as much thought into saying it as you are in trying to decipher it. I honestly wouldn't let it keep you awake."

Drake Mallard woke up in bed with a newspaper waving in front of his face.

"Da-ad!" Gosalyn quacked. "Wake up!"
"What, what?" He snatched the paper from her and read the bulletin. "Firebug Murderer killed in arrest attempt? Why am I the last to know about this?"
"Dad, it says you were 'there'." She stressed.

"No, I was n-..." Drake paused, reading more of the printed story. "I translocated. They both pulled guns, I thought I didn't stand a chance and I translocated the heck out of there."
"Well, it looks like you were wrong about old Grizlykoff. Apparently he got winged in the shootout and he's recovering back at S.H.U.S.H. medical wing."

Drake read the details on the news report carefully. "Winged nothing. Remind me to give you a lesson or two on how to reconstruct a shoot out."
"But he's in hospital."
"Guns." Drake said slowly in explanation. "Another one of those things you don't want to learn the hard way, Gos. Stay clear of them; they affect the target, the bystanders and the shooter. Hooter will have Griz in the ward for psych testing just for the fall out alone."

Drake read the bulletin again. "I'd left before this happened." He frowned. "Griz's been behaving more than usually psychotic all week. Now at least I know why. If only his memory wasn't so bad he would have figured out Harris and he would have remembered my dad. He could have solved this case right at the beginning. Not remembering their own past when they know they need to. That's sure to drive anyone 'round the twist." He put down the paper. "But that's all over now; you and I have got to clean this place up."

"Sure, dad," Gosalyn grumbled. "You re-alphabetize the kitchen and I'll tackle the lounge room." She paused at the door. "It's ridiculous how much of a stupid mess S.H.U.S.H. made of this whole case. Not to mention our house. I thought it was hard just cleaning up after myself!"
"That's all beside the point, hon." Drake climbed out of bed. "You and me survived the siege. As far as I'm concerned having four walls and a roof are optional extras to knowing you're safe and sound."

"Oh!" Gosalyn stepped back from the door and hugged him tightly.

"I love you too, dad."

The End...