Author's Note: This is the sequel to Mirror Mirror, but it contains no spoilers, other than Lena getting her own body courtesy of Minima and having problems with her coordination. But that's not a major spoiler and besides, aside from a couple references to the alternate universe, you don't need to have read MM to know what's going on. Right now.

I wanted to post this now because I've been having an awful few weeks and therefore, am posting a lot more than I normally do.

Please leave me love? Pretty please?

Chapter One: Walking with a Ghost

It was a tricky proposition and a dangerous hike up the mountain for the four of them. Scrooge considered it arduous, which meant the kids would probably have some problems with it. As was the case with their last adventure, Mrs. Beakley had insisted on attending. At the moment, she and the kids were ascending the mountain behind him. The climb was mostly silent, due to the strenuous nature of their activity.

Louie hadn't been interested in going at first, because this was one of the adventures not involving treasure. They'd roped him along, although he claimed he'd joined under protest. On the other hand, the other kids were positively excited about this. It was just vexing that the object was on the top of a mountain, at the summit.

He wouldn't have to compete with Glomgold to reach it, at least. The other Scottish billionaire would have no interest in a shallow pool that conveyed the faces and voices of those that the person who loved had lost. Scrooge wouldn't look in it himself, but the boys had shown varying degrees of interest in it. He was afraid to see Della in there. There was no confirmation she had died, but there was none that she had lived, either.

To see Della would be to admit there was no hope. His heart was heavy at the thought and he focused on climbing the mountain. Any further rumination or brooding could wait until they reached the summit.

The next hour passed in relative silence. It was growing colder and he had warned everyone to conserve their energy. Mrs. Beakley had hardly needed the reminder, but the kids had. His hands had frozen inside their mittens and he'd long stopped regarding seeing his breath as a novelty.

After another half hour, at which point he thought his arms were about to pop out of their sockets, he reached the summit and guided the others up with him. They all panted and Scrooge cast his gaze about for the pool. He needn't have worried about someone else being there; aside from themselves, there was no one.

He gestured for them to follow him into a cave and his skin burned upon contact with the much warmer air. His tail wagged, quite against his wishes, and he muttered. The kids were shedding their heavy winter gear, as it was about seventy degrees inside. The inside of the mountain had hot springs, which was what created such a dichotomy of temperatures.

"So, where's this Pool of Eternal Reflection?" Louie asked. Scrooge wiped at the profuse sweat on his face; the sudden temperature change had induced sweating.

"Right there," he said, pointing toward a lake recessed within the cave toward the back. They staggered toward it, exhausted from their trek. Since it was too high for Launchpad to fly, they would have to at least partially descend before the pilot could catch them. That assumed he didn't crash into the side of the mountain.

Feeling as though he ought to face his fears, as the boys would expect him to, he knelt at the edge of the pool. Della's face did not appear. Relatives he'd outlived had, but no one he cared to speak with. He stepped back; it'd been curiosity and fear that had propelled him up the mountain. While not seeing Della didn't tell him anything more about her current state, it was reassuring to know that she wasn't dead. He just didn't know where she was.

But the board of directors would have his head if he produced that as proof that Della was still alive. He needed something more concrete. And those vultures would never have accompanied him up the mountain to see for themselves.

"I don't see anyone," Huey said, frowning. "Shouldn't we at least have seen Mom?"

"She's not dead," Scrooge said and then excitement pushed at him. "She's not dead! I was looking in the wrong place! If we can get a clue as to where she is, maybe we can find her ourselves!"

He jumped up and down and for a few seconds, he was elated.

"But if she's not dead, then where is she?" Huey asked.

"That I can't tell you, lad," he said. "But this is good news."

"If we can find her…" Dewey said and then his attention caught on something else. "Webby?"

Webby had collapsed to her knees too and was scrutinizing her reflection. Mrs. Beakley stood behind her and the young girl had gone utterly still, entranced by whatever she saw and heard. She reached trembling fingers out toward them, disrupting the water and the image.

"Webby, we can find my mom!" he said, oblivious to her mood. "Webby!"

"What's going on?" Huey asked, torn between his own thinking of the logistics of both finding Della and how she'd managed to stay alive and Webby's strange reaction.

"It's all right, Webby," Mrs. Beakley said in a tone that indicated she was trying her utmost to prevent an outcry. She placed a hand on her shoulder and Webby's lower beak quivered.

"What's the matter, lass?" Scrooge asked. He was too thrilled about Della's being alive to fully comprehend what was going on with her. Then again, until the boys had come along, he'd seldom see hide nor feather of Webby. She wasn't allowed to come near him and Scrooge didn't know how much she knew or didn't know about her parents if that was who she saw in the reflection.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Webby demanded, jumping to her feet. Whatever she'd done before had temporarily dispelled the lake's magical effects.

"Tell you what?" Huey asked. "Who did you see?"

Webby was twisting the friendship bracelet around her wrist, which was something she'd started doing when she was agitated, he'd noticed. Her shadow moved out of sync with her and it almost looked like it was trying to calm her down. Curious, Scrooge cocked his head at it. Webby didn't appear to notice. She was worked up about something.

"My parents," Webby said and a sudden hush filled the cave. Louie, who had been fiddling with his phone in lieu of anything more interesting to do, since the lake hadn't revealed anything to him or his brothers, looked up and almost dropped it. He fumbled, shoved it in his pocket, and approached her.

"What about your parents?" Dewey asked. The air grew tense, pregnant with expectation. Scrooge found himself holding his breath for a few moments and then scoffed at himself. He was being ridiculous. Still, there seemed to be something Webby was holding out on saying. Huey, Dewey, and Louie surrounded her like a protective shield.

"My dear, I didn't tell you because…" But Mrs. Beakley had nothing to back that up with. It seemed that despite her illustrious career as a spy she was intimidated by her granddaughter. Or perhaps there was guilt present because her gaze darted about the cavern instead of looking back at Webby.

Webby stared at her and ground her beak together to keep from crying. Alarmed, Scrooge moved closer to her too.

"We've got this," Dewey assured him. Webby looked torn between fight or flight; she was quivering with suppressed emotion.

"Because I didn't think you needed to know," Mrs. Beakley finished. "I didn't think it was relevant to your studies and because, quite frankly, it doesn't matter."

"It doesn't matter?" Webby repeated. "I've been spending all of this time trying to find Della Duck with the triplets and you thought I wouldn't care about my own parents?"

Her voice was low as if she were fighting the impulse to scream.

"You've never asked," Mrs. Beakley said delicately.

"Because you never let me!" Webby objected. "And who else was I supposed to ask? Duckworth?"

"I, uh, think perhaps we ought to be going," Scrooge said, attempting to little avail to defuse the situation. No one budged.

"What really happened to my parents, Granny?" Webby asked and the triplets moved as one to hug her. Her voice broke. "Why didn't they want me?"

Betina Beakley was at a loss. How did you tell a child she was unplanned and unexpected? Moreover, how did you tell her that her parents were not good people? Or, at least, her father wasn't. Betina had mixed feelings about Webby's mother, Mrs. Beakley's daughter. The fact remained that even though Webby was twelve years old, Webby's mother had yet to visit her daughter or even acknowledge her existence. She'd also yet to speak to Betina; she'd merely dumped the egg as soon as was feasible and skedaddled.

But you couldn't tell a child that. However, she would have to tell her something, and soon, because Webby's eyes had filled with tears and it struck a blow to Mrs. Beakley's heart to see it. Webby didn't cry easily. Even when Mr. McDuck had yelled at her, she'd prevented the tears from spilling over. She was proud of her granddaughter for being strong, stronger than her mother, in fact. While that was a good sentiment, it was not one to lead with and the longer she delayed answering her, the darker the looks the triplets gave her, and the more upset Webby became.

She'd have to say something, even if she hadn't the slightest idea what.

"Well?" Webby said. Betina was surprised how much it hurt to see Webby this miserable. She wished she could take the pain on herself instead.

"Your parents...were not the best suited to raising a child," Mrs. Beakley said, striving for diplomacy. There was also a problem that needed addressing. Webby hadn't told her who she'd seen in the pool nor what they'd said. If Betina was going to feasibly work her way around this, she required that information.

She glanced at Webby's shadow, but since Lena had been extracted from the friendship bracelet, it was just that-a bracelet. Lena was at home; although she had a body, she technically had no dead relatives, and of her living relatives, the less said, the better. Technically, Scrooge was a relative, if one believed that his fight with Magica had created Lena. That was another thorny business best left untouched for the moment. Needless to say, Lena had not come along.

There was the additional problem of Lena's coordination, which wasn't up to scaling mountains at the present time. Minima had done her best, Betina was sure, but Lena had to get used to being corporeal again and, as such, she didn't always manage walking over flat surfaces without tripping up. Poor girl. A mountain was out of the question.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dewey asked, oddly defensive. Della must've been on his mind.

"It means that in this world, there are those who, how shall I put this? Their talents lie elsewhere, not in childrearing," she said. "What did you see in the pool, Webby?'

Webby swallowed hard, and Dewey squeezed her hand.

"I saw my mother," she said after an indeterminate amount of time. "She told me that I was a mistake."

If she weren't confident that her daughter was dead, she would've wrung her neck. How could you say that to a child? Also, that did explain the radio silence on her daughter's part. She couldn't even have sent a death notification to her mother? Betina knew her daughter hadn't been working for SHUSH like she had, but she still could've had something set up. She was affronted but knew now was not the time to indulge in that. Besides, the bigger crime he was telling Webby what she had.

Scrooge McDuck shuffled from one foot to another. He'd met Betina's daughter and had approved of her presence, much as he did of Webby's, in the mansion. Back then, he'd been more involved in her life, seeing as she couldn't have always brought her daughter along on spy missions. That wasn't to say that Duckworth didn't end up babysitting, but Scrooge had known Webby's mother better than he knew Webby.

Betina frowned. Truth be told...Webby had been a mistake. Mrs. Beakley had done her utmost to never make Webby think that, but part of the toll that exacted was never telling her about her parents. She shot Scrooge a dirty look. That practice could've continued if he hadn't dragged the kids here, all because he remained obsessed with Della.

"You know, these long silences are getting awkward," Louie said. He squeezed Webby's shoulder. "Not to mention ridiculous."

"This is a delicate subject matter," Mrs. Beakley said.

"It seems like this is a pretty cut and dry situation," Louie countered. "I mean, is she a mistake? Obviously not."

To her relief, Scrooge spoke up to help run damage control.

"When you get older, lad, you'll see that things sometimes happen. They're not...mistakes...per se," he said, casting Mrs. Beakley a quick glance for help, but none was forthcoming. If he wanted to flounder in this too, then he could be her guest.

"They're more like happy accidents," he finished.

"My mom didn't seem that happy to see me," Webby countered, and the boys moved closer, trying to shield her from what she'd already seen. It was like drinking poison and having someone else take the antidote. It was already too late to prevent the damage; the best they could do was mitigate it.

"Your mother was always difficult," Mrs. Beakley said. "Come, wouldn't you rather discuss this on the Sunchaser? On our way back?"

She directed this last comment at Scrooge and gave him a pointed look.

"Quite right, we'd all be more comfortable on the Sunchaser," he agreed. "And while we're there, I can see whether Gyro has any idea…"

He trailed off at Mrs. Beakley glowering at him. Now was not the time to bring up Della.

Mrs. Beakley moved in front of Webby, and the triplets remained where they were, eying her warily.

"I am her grandmother. I was here before you three were," she pointed out. "You don't need to be so overprotective."

They stepped back, albeit reluctantly; evidently, adults keeping secrets regarding parents was a raw wound. If she could have trusted Scrooge to smooth that over, she would have. However, she knew that would be best left to their Uncle Donald, who had always been more perceptive than Scrooge.

She hugged Webby tightly, and Webby clung to her; she was sniffling.

"You may have not been anticipated, but you are wanted by everyone here," she informed her. "We all love and care for you. As I said, your parents were not the best suited to childrearing, and they left you in my capable hands."

Webby nodded, but Betina could tell she wasn't entirely mollified.

"What happened to my father?" she asked. "I only saw Mom in there."

"Your father is still alive…" she said and bit back the rest of what she wanted to say, which was, unfortunately.

"Then why hasn't he come to see me?" she said.

"You don't need another family," Dewey said. "You have us."

Webby looked like she wanted to argue the point, but she shook her head instead. She gestured for Mrs. Beakley to release her and she darted toward the boys. Mrs. Beakley smiled. She was glad that Donald had brought them into the mansion; Webby had needed companions her own age or thereabouts, and they brought them with a sense of cohesion she hadn't had before. Of course, it was not without its dangers, but she thought they were, on the whole, good influences.

Mrs. Beakley wasn't foolish enough to think the topic was over. Delayed, perhaps, but it would arise again. She intended to have a discussion with Scrooge in private aboard the Sunchaser if possible about whether the pool reflected the actual disposition of the dead. It wasn't that she doubted Webby's words, but she hated that her daughter might've been the one to inflict such pain on her.

Then again, Webby's mother had always been an insubordinate, ungrateful child. She'd resented Mrs. Beakley's position within SHUSH and how careful they'd had to be. Although she later became a spy, she'd never liked it as a child. Mrs. Beakley suspected she'd only become a spy to spite her mother because Mrs. Beakley had wanted a safer avenue for her.

While Webby's personality could be a bit extreme at times, she never backtalked or ran off on her own into the same sort of situations as her mother had. Not that Mrs. Beakley had tolerated the backtalk, but no matter what she did, Webby's mother had always engaged in sophomoric behavior.

They trooped back through the cave, donned their heavy winter gear again, and descended the mountain in the same silence with which they had ascended it. This time, the silence was heavy and portentous. Mrs. Beakley couldn't help stealing glances beneath her at Webby. Although she was trying to hide it, Mrs. Beakley caught her sniffling and swiping at her eyes. At this height, the tears were probably becoming icicles.

To be honest, she wasn't sure who to blame for this. Scrooge had insisted on everyone accompanying him, and Webby couldn't say "no." However, Mrs. Beakley had had no reason to believe that Webby's parents would speak to her. Moreover, she had thought they were both alive. Again, the injustice of it struck her anew. One would think there'd be some sort of sign that your child was gone from the world. There had been nothing.

She mourned her daughter, all the while worrying about her granddaughter. This was going to be a long trek down the mountain.

Webby was lost in her thoughts, which weren't the safest place to be. She thought of how Della had perished in the alternate dimension, yet this Della appeared to be alive, if not well. Had Della abandoned the boys like Webby's parents had left her? Was this the adults' way of protecting them, by keeping them from finding out stuff like this? Webby had spent her entire life sheltered from everything, and it hadn't occurred to her to be resentful of it. She'd taken it as a given she was stuck in the mansion until the boys had come along.

Scrooge had said that the pool reflected a person's relative's real disposition, although they were shades, phantoms. When confronted with proof of her daughter, her mother's first inclination had been to repudiate her. To tell her that she'd never wanted her and that as far as she was concerned, she didn't exist to her.

Webby rested her head against the rope for a few seconds and swallowed sobs. It hurt to cry in this altitude, between the low oxygen levels, the chill, and the height. They had another hour until they could reach a space where Launchpad might be able to scoop them up. Her legs trembled, and she knew that if it hadn't been for her, they would have taken a more extended rest. If anything happened to her or anyone else, it was because of her.

She wished Lena had come along. While she loved the boys, it wasn't the same. She needed a female friend. Lena would understand all about not being wanted. Webby swallowed back another sob. While her grandmother's words contradicted what her mother had said, it didn't erase them. The negative always weighed heavily than the positive.

It was too cold to talk, not that she was sure she wanted to. She hadn't missed her grandmother's glances down at her.

What had happened to her father? Granny had said he was still alive, but nothing more than that. Did her father even know she was alive? Or...had he gone on not knowing she existed? That he'd helped bring her into the world?

It was tremendously difficult to suppress the sobs at that, and her whole body trembled as she concentrated more on putting one foot in front of the other, finding the toeholds and fingerholds, and rappeling down. She blinked away the tears as best she could and told herself she could cry later, when she was alone. Right now, she had to focus on descending.

At least with that to distract her, she could push away her misery for a brief while. All too soon, however, the physical exertion was over, and they climbed the rope into the Sunchaser. Unfortunately, without focusing on not falling and climbing carefully, she had nothing else to occupy her mind. It returned to the pool where she'd seen her mother, who'd been a buxom beauty, her appearance marred by the sneer on her face.

She wished the Sunchaser were more like a ship so there might be some place she could safely hide. The triplets were distracted again, as Scrooge was regaling them with his future plans for hoping to locate Della. Mrs. Beakley, however, was not so quickly put off. She approached Webby, who was hanging out in the back of the ship. She'd been hoping if she stayed out of sight, she might be out of mind too.

"I'm sorry," her grandmother said. "I know it must've been a terrible shock to you. I never wanted you to find out that way."

"Then how did you want me to find out?" she asked, hugging herself. She allowed her grandmother to hold her again, although it made her feel like she was eight instead of twelve and walking around with that absurd pink doll.

"I hadn't planned on telling you until you were much older," she admitted. "Of course, I had hoped by then I would have had some word from your mother. This was not how I'd thought I'd find out about her fate."

"You didn't know she was dead?" she asked, pressing her face against her chest to conceal her tears.

"No."

"Were you two close?" she asked, though she couldn't see how that was possible if she hadn't heard from her since Webby's hatching.

"Almost as close as Mr. McDuck and Donald were after Della's disappearance," she said. Webby felt like a leaden weight had fallen on her chest.

"Wow," she muttered.

"Of course, Mr. McDuck did keep tabs on his nephew, despite Donald's attempts to remain off his radar. He had already lost one relative. He wasn't about to lose another if he could help it."

"But you didn't keep tabs on Mom?" she asked. It felt odd to say "Mom." When she was younger, she remembered once or twice calling her grandmother that only to be corrected gently. To her, Granny had always been an indomitable force of will. She didn't see how anyone could walk away from that, especially her daughter.

"Spies can be difficult to find if they don't want to be."

She stroked Webby's hair.

"And my dad?" she asked.

"You're better off not knowing him," she said, which was precisely the wrong thing to say, for Webby stiffened in her arms.

"I mean it, Webbigail Vanderquack. If he isn't aware of you, that's a good thing."

"I don't see how that's a good thing," she replied. "Shouldn't he know that I'm around? And...how doesn't he know?"

"Your father and your mother had a brief fling," she said. Webby got the hint that she'd meant to say something else but was sugar-coating it for her sake. If she hadn't been bristling before, she was now. What was she so determined to keep from her?

Webby looked up to spy Dewey looking at her. Louie glanced up from his phone to meet her gaze too. Huey was too busy discussing logistics with Scrooge to notice.

"She didn't tell him about me?" she pressed. She didn't understand how. True, her mother had called her a mistake, but...wasn't the arrival of a child a happy occasion? Scrooge had said that children could be "happy accidents," not mistakes. Webby shifted, uncomfortable. Had the adults been lying again?

She shook her head. "I'm sorry."

"Why didn't you tell him about me?" Webby continued.

"As I said, your father is better off not knowing about you," she said.

"We'll see about that," Webby said.

"Oh, no. No, you're not. You are not to go poking around trying to find out what happened to your parents the way you did with Della Duck," she sniffed. "It's too dangerous."

"I'll be careful," she promised, a gleam in her eyes. "I won't do anything stupid."

She suppressed a grin. Oh, there was no way she was letting this slip through her fingers. This time, all three boys were looking her way, her fellow co-conspirators. Granny hadn't forbidden her to investigate her parents' disappearances and identities.

And, well, what Granny didn't know couldn't hurt her.

"You know, they weren't exactly pleased with what we did before," Huey pointed out.

"I know, but…" Webby gnawed her lower beak. "You had to find out what happened to your mom. I have to find out what happened to my parents."

"We're with you," Dewey promised, ignoring Huey's look. "But we don't even know where to start."

"My granny said my mother was a spy," Webby said. "She probably didn't mean to tell me that, but we can work with that. If she worked for SHUSH, then maybe we can find out her name and maybe even who my father was. She said they had a fling, my parents."

"If it was a fling, then why would it be in the SHUSH history files?" Dewey said.

"I don't know, but I don't have anything else to go on," she replied, folding her arms across her chest. "And Granny won't tell me any more than 'your father is better off not knowing about you.' What does that even mean?"

"That is a bizarre thing to say," Huey allowed.

"But why wouldn't your dad want you? You're awesome," Louie said. "A little intense, but still cool."

Webby flushed and smiled at him.

Dewey elbowed him in the ribs and Louie affected an innocent look. Perplexed, she looked at Huey, who just shrugged.

"We have to see if I can get into the SHUSH files," she said and then her face fell. "Without Granny finding out. That might be harder than I thought…"