AN: This one is almost done – one more chapter after this.
Chapter 17
The sound of a plane roaring through the sky is distinctive and so is the sound of a human body falling out of time and into the present. There was a brief crackling as all the lights on in Gull Cottage flickered and hissed and then the sound like a huge gust of wind blowing through the house as a black void opened in the living room and the Captain came crashing with a spectacular impact onto the hardwood floors.
The occupants of the room stared at him in astonishment as he lay groaning on the floor.
"Daniel?" Carolyn gasped, concerned that he hadn't moved and lie groaning on the floor. As she rushed over to him she motioned for Scully to join her.
Scully quickly made her way over to him, immediately taking his wrist and checking his pulse.
Carolyn coaxed him into turning over and then assisted him to a sitting position. Scully was checking for signs of a concussion and make sure that he hadn't broken any bones from his crash landing.
"He doesn't seem to have injured himself too severely. I don't see any broken bones although he could have some sprains."
"A concussion?" Carolyn asked.
"Too soon to tell," Dana said, but noted that when the Captain blinked and opened his eyes he seemed more aware.
"Bloody hell! Now where the hell am I?" He looked at the crowd around him as everything began to sink in. "I'm back?"
"Yeah, you're back," Mulder smirked. "A bit outdated, but back."
"What?" The Captain looked down at himself and then at his clothes from fifty years ago.
"Don't worry about it, Danny. You always look good."
"Oh God, I am back. The universe is not so cruel as to have more than one Fox Mulder in it," he groaned, and everyone laughed.
"Hey, I missed you too!" Fox walked over and helped the Captain to his feet, offering his arm for support as he led him over to the couch.
Carolyn sat beside Daniel, still fussing over him.
Scully sat down on the other side, holding his wrist and taking his pulse, and then frowning as she felt his head for any excessive bumps or discolored bruises.
"Anything I can do?" Mulder asked.
There was a sudden vacuum of sound which hurt their ears, and then a bright light as Sucellos suddenly appeared in their midst, with a slight bow to all.
"No need for that, Mr. Mulder, Daniel will be just fine." he said and with a snap of his fingers, Daniel was shaking his head and looking much more alert.
"How pleasant it is to see you all again." He surveyed them, but they remained quiet. "What, no comments from this crowd? Are you all ill?"
"I'm not sure that anyone knows what to say," Scully said.
"I know what to say, can't you make these damn landings easier? Bloody hell!" Daniel cursed.
"My apologies, Daniel, but even bringing you back is not a certain thing. And you did end up in the right time and place, did you not?"
He glared at the older spirit. "Did it work?"
The tension in the room was unsettling as they waited for his answer.
"Carolyn, can you answer that for everyone?"
"Well, I don't know, I mean…"
"You will, just close your eyes and concentrate."
With a sigh of frustration and a glare for the small man, she did as she was told. As with the first time he had come back, Carolyn didn't know what she was searching for, so she tried to bring back her memories of when Candy was born. She knew those had been rewritten so she felt those would be relatively easy to access. She was pleased when she searched and found not only that incredible day, but the memories of being with Daniel that created her beautiful daughter.
She smiled, her eyes remained closed.
She wasn't aware that the entire room was holding their collective breath, watching her every move.
"She's smiling," Fox whispered, and Dana shushed him.
Carolyn ignored them and tried to move herself forward from Candy's birth. She saw the problems that she lived through with her parents, disgracing and disappointing them by becoming a single mother. She suffered through Bobby's anger, and jealousy, telling him that despite his belief, Candy was not his child. So many fights with Bobby, his parents and her parents, but despite all of that she had finished school and landed a job. The family's housekeeper and all-around family assistant, Martha, became Carolyn's staunchest ally and friend, and with her help, things began to even out. The fights calmed, and her life settled into a routine and she was grateful for the reprieve. Then one day, she got a message that Captain Daniel Gregg had called her, and her heart practically stopped. It all rushed at her then, almost so fast that she couldn't take it all in. The effect that seeing him again had on her, how quickly she ended up in bed with him, not being seduced but instead giving in to her heart which she had surrendered to him.
And then the realization that he had told her the truth, that he had told her everything he could about who he was and when he was from, that he was this Daniel Gregg.
"Oh, my God." She stared at Daniel. "You told me almost everything…"
"Err, yes, yes I did," he gave her a look that tried to quiet her, but she ignored it.
"And then, then I found out that I was pregnant." Tears began to trickle down her cheek as she felt the emotions from that time engulfing her. "I had Jonathan nine months later. And damnit! He has your smile. I knew every time he looked back at me that he belonged to you."
"Were you all right? I mean, you had a lot to go through…"
She offered him a teary smile. "I survived and moved to Gull Cottage several years later where I met an incredibly impossible ghost, one who didn't know me or the children."
"I'm sorry," he said with a heartfelt apology.
"Couldn't be helped, a trick of time. That was the hardest thing I think, knowing that it was you but not yet the you that I had met. It was a long time before I could tell you the truth, and then getting you to believe it!" She laughed through her tears and rolled her eyes.
"I was difficult, wasn't I?"
"That would be one way to describe it. Pompous, arrogant, stupid man. "
"It's good to know that some things never change," he said with a laugh. "So, Jonathan…"
Wiping away the tears, she nodded, and looked up as Candy and Jonathan entered the room.
"Mom, look!" Candy said and gestured at her brother whose appearance had also altered.
The man before them took a deep breath, and stood tall, looking at everyone in the room, but his gaze finally rested on the Captain and his mother. He was stockier than before, more muscled, his height a couple of inches taller than his father. His green eyes were Carolyn's, but his hair was redder than Candy's, and his face resembled Daniels's but with softer lines, no doubt due to Carolyn's influence in the gene pool.
"My God," Scully muttered. "There's no doubt as to who his father is."
"Danny! Good work! Look what you did!" Mulder ginned foolishly.
"Yes, look what you did," Sucellos said.
"Hey, does this make everything right?" Mulder asked. "We'd kind of like to stay in this timeline."
"Yes, I gathered as much. And I'm sure, Daniel, that after all of this, you and would like to remain here as well."
"Yes, most definitely."
"But what about us?" Jonathan said.
"Yeah, I'm interested in hearing about that too," Candy crossed her arms in front of her.
Sucellos held up a hand. "One thing at a time, please!" He rubbed his head. "Spirits are not supposed to be able to get headaches but the lot of you constantly give me one." He pointed to the chairs in the room. "Everyone sit down and we will deal with this."
Jonathan walked over to his parents and gave them each a hug filled with emotion before he returned to sit beside his sister.
"All right, wait, where is William? He needs to be here too." Sucellos closed his eyes and then snapped his fingers and the boy was suddenly standing in front of his parents.
"What happened?"
"Sucellos wanted you here with us?"
The small boy turned around to see the spirit who regarded him with a bemused expression. "Welcome, young William. Your presence was required here as well."
"So much for his nap," Scully muttered to Mulder, who shrugged.
"Bigger fish to fry," he said.
"So, this all started when some months ago you managed to dispose of a very ugly, nasty demon that the Mulder's knew as Donnie Pflaster in the mortal realm. Though the powers that be were pleased to restore some measure of happiness to the Mulders in the aspect of having their son back, and the freedom to do as they will with their lives, it just didn't seem enough."
"Don't forget the alien invasion. You will stop that," Mulder said, still a bit uncertain.
"Yes, Mr. Mulder we have not forgotten. As I told you before it will be taken care of; you have nothing to worry about on that account." He turned towards the Greggs. "And Daniel, you and your lovely wife did a very unselfish, noble thing at great risk to yourself to dispose of that hideous creature. Once again we felt that the end result was not enough."
"But we've had many happy years," he said and reached for Carolyn's hand.
"True, and you constantly turned the spirit realm on its ear with your antics to prove that true love does exist; sometimes even despite death." He shook his head. "We took notice of that and began to check into things. We have concluded that you two are always meant to be together. Whether it be this lifetime, past lifetimes, or future lifetimes; maybe even heaven." He gave them a fond smile.
"And this means what?" Daniel asked.
"Simply put that the Powers that Be felt that all of you were owed more, even though you seemed happy, and we came up with a way to reward you."
"It was the hunt! The alien hunt that Dad took us on!" William piped up.
"Mulder, that goo that you smelled and got all over me."
"And I slipped and fell, and Daniel helped me up…" Carolyn said.
"Yes, it was an element that was meant to reset your bodies back to your youth, and for the most part it worked fine. But as Daniel was a spirit, something different had to happen to him."
"He had to go back in time?" Candy shook her head. "I don't get it."
"He has no physical body here, the remnants of one but it would be hideous to have him walking around in that form," Sucellos shuddered.
"Thank you so much for that visual," the Captain muttered, "now no one will want to be with me."
"I've seen worse," Carolyn reminded him, and he grimaced.
"That means he had to go back to a time when he had a living body," Mulder said, starting to put the pieces together. "His lifetime."
"Yes, exactly so. The plan was to let him, his current spirit self, reside in his actual body as long as we could let it, thereby gaining more physical cells to connect to."
"But he was going to die!" Jonathan said.
"Yes, but when that happened he would have been propelled back here to his current time as a living, breathing man. Mortal, at least for the most part." He scowled at them. "But you interfered and botched things up!"
"We were just trying to save him!" Scully stood up and strode across the room and planted herself in front of the spirt. "How dare you judge us for trying to help our friend? How were we to know what you were doing? You didn't tell us, did you?"
Mulder quickly came up behind his wife, and placed his hands on her shoulders, trying to calm her down. "Scully, relax. Please relax."
"No! How dare he throw that in our face!"
"All you had to do was wait. Why was that so hard?" The air outside rumbled as a storm approached and Daniel growled at the other spirit.
"Maybe because they actually have feelings and were foolish enough to care about what became of me!" Daniel growled at the other spirit, standing before him.
"Did I do something wrong?" The small voice said from the couch. "I just wanted Uncle Danny back."
Everyone froze, and all the yelling stopped as they looked at William who had a very sad expression on his face. Scully threw a daggered look at the powerful spirit, not really caring what he thought and went over to her son.
Sucellos trailed behind, and after a moment, bent down so that he was at William's level. "William, your actions did confuse things. But, I know you did it for a very good reason, that you wanted your Uncle Danny back. I am not mad at you for that. All right?" The corners of the boy's mouth quirked ever so slightly, and he nodded, once again the confident young boy.
The spirit stood up and continued. "When the lad attempted to bring Daniel back he simply wasn't strong enough, and left Daniel in the safest place he knew and that was with Carolyn."
"I knew she would take care of him, Auntie Carolyn loves Uncle Danny!" William chirped happily.
"Mom, do you have a comeback?" Jonathan teased his mother. "Because you certainly did love him."
"She took advantage of him," Candy said as her mother blushed.
"Please!" Sucellos said firmly and the thunder rumbled again as everyone quieted down. "Thank you. As I was saying, that changed the course of our planned gift to you and left you with the two choices that you were imparted to you; either continue with the new timeline and do what was needed to bring Jonathan back; or things would be reset as they were before all of this happened."
"And is the timeline reset now?" Carolyn queried softly.
The group of people in the room stared at their paranormal mentor, waiting to hear if everything had gone correctly and they were now locked in this timeline that they had chosen.