Webby returned from the therapist still subdued. Although Scrooge had no doubt filled the therapist in on Webby's sordid history, she hadn't forced Webby to admit it. She wanted Webby to open up to her naturally. And normally, she'd have had no problem with that. Now, however, she was wary. Any charges that might have been filed would have been dropped-Scrooge had ensured they had never seen the light of day, so Webby wasn't going to be tried, even as a juvenile, for killing the Bloodhound Gang leader. However, he had been required to mention what she'd done and endured to find a competent therapist.
There were things Webby could discuss other than the Bloodhound Gang, like Magica murdering her grandmother. Or how she always shunted her feelings to the side in favor of other people. However, if she didn't discuss that stuff with the boys or Lena, what chance was there of her opening up to discuss it with a total stranger? The therapy session had consisted of her mostly rambling about the McDuck clan and her experiences with the boys and how she'd felt like she'd had a family. Then, when the subject grew too heavy, she'd changed gears.
It wasn't healthy and she knew the therapist disapproved, but she couldn't stop herself. She hated making people feel uncomfortable and she knew that her emotions, strong as they were, could be the cause of that. The therapist had hinted at this being a double-edged sword and Webby had agreed, though she'd been quick to change the subject again.
Back at the manor, she found Lena attempting to converse with Poe, whom she must have accepted as her father because she was no longer trying to shoo him away. Lena didn't look up when Webby came into the living room; she was intent on whatever Poe was trying to tell her. Webby's chest tightened. Fine, if Lena didn't want to be bothered, Webby wouldn't bother her. She wanted to and maybe this was self-sabotage on her part, but she didn't.
She encountered the boys on their way toward the living room too. They were talking, but, unlike Lena, they noticed her approach. Louie took one look at her and his scowl deepened. She wasn't sure what or who they'd been discussing before, but it hadn't been pleasant.
"What's going on?" she asked, eager to deflect the conversation away from her.
"What's going on with you?" Louie countered.
"Nothing," she said, trying to sidestep his question. "What are you so upset about?"
"Mom can't tell the difference between us," Huey said and underneath his disgust, there was anguish. She moved to put an arm about his shoulders; Louie was still eying her keenly and she wasn't sure she appreciated the attention.
"What happened?" she asked.
"I went to check on Mom because she freaked out and she was having a panic attack. She wanted me to get Uncle Donald," Huey explained. "She rejected me."
"It's only been a couple weeks," Webby argued.
"It's been two weeks and she can't remember color coordination?" Huey protested, puffing up in indignation. "That's ridiculous. She doesn't want to know who we are."
"Give her the benefit of the doubt," Dewey said. "She's probably got some issues from being stuck up there in space for ten years. And maybe she panicked when she saw you."
"Why are you defending her?" Huey countered.
"Why aren't you?" Dewey shot back.
"Webby," Louie said, determined to bring the conversation back to her. "Therapists are supposed to make you feel better. Unless, you know, they're part of the big con and they're just taking your money for nothing. But I don't think Uncle Scrooge would've hired someone like that."
"I'm fine," she insisted, but her voice trembled and the other two triplets, engaged in an argument, looked toward her. She attempted to muster a smile to reassure them, but it fell flat.
"You've been having nightmares almost every night," Louie pressed and it irritated her. Why was he so determined to push this on her? They had their own problems. She didn't need to be one of them. It was like after her grandmother had died and they'd been shoving their way into her life to supposedly make her feel better. They were supposed to be family, were they? Why couldn't they leave her alone?
"And you won't talk about them," he persisted.
"You aren't supposed to know about them," she snapped back. "It's bad enough I have to relive what happened to me. I don't need you to know."
Huey stopped in mid-step. Dewey, whose mouth had been open to debate something else, shut his beak abruptly. Webby balled her fists and Louie squeezed her shoulder.
"I don't need your pity," she snapped.
"It's not pity," Huey said. "We're worried about you. You always put everyone else first and then you bury your feelings. It's not healthy. And, if you're going to keep coming into our room and having nightmares, you might as well tell us what they're about."
"I'll stop going to see you," she said sharply and Huey hissed.
"That's not what I meant," he said.
He'd released her, but Louie hadn't. Louie's gaze was keen on her, too keen. She pushed him away, perhaps too hard because he staggered, and charged off. She didn't know where she was going, just that she needed to get away. Unfortunately, the boys weren't taking the hint.
"Webby!" Huey said harshly and she stopped, whirling around to confront him. Her chest was tight.
"Let us in," Dewey pleaded. "We get if you don't trust the therapist and we get that you're upset over everything, but you can't keep acting like it doesn't bother you. We know that it does."
She searched their faces. They all looked intent and Louie's eyes narrowed.
"I told you before, Webby, you're a terrible liar," Louie said. "You have to tell us what happened. Even if you don't give us the details, at least give us something."
Webby swallowed past the constriction in her throat. Her beak trembled and she balled her fists tighter. What was she supposed to tell them? That her nightmares were embellishing what had happened and making it a thousand times worse? That she felt like she'd disappointed her granny by being attacked in the first place? That she was weak and pathetic because she couldn't fend off two people with guns?
Her gaze dropped. She wanted to steer the conversation back to their problems with Della, but her throat was too tight to permit speech.
"I can't," she managed after a minute. The boys surrounded her and although the desire to flee had faded, she now felt rooted to the floor.
"How bad was it?" Dewey asked earnestly and thumbed away tears that had slipped down her cheeks. She glanced up at him.
In a low voice, she said, "I should have done something. I should have stopped them. I was trained to defend myself…"
"They had two guns to your head," Huey said. "How could you have possibly fended them off?"
"I should have done something!" she said sharply, glowering at him. "And Granny…"
"Mrs. B wouldn't have been upset with you," Louie said and she jerked her head at him.
"Don't you understand?" she asked, searching his gaze. "That's why I have to find the Stone of Remembrance. I have to talk to her again. I have to tell her what happened."
The boys exchanged an indecipherable look that grated on her nerves. She hated when they did that triplet thing and excluded her. It was like they had a whole other language that only they could learn.
"Uh, about the stone…" Dewey said and Louie elbowed him in the ribs. "Ow! What?"
Louie jerked his head at him.
"What about the stone?" she asked, querulous. She wasn't sure she liked where this was heading. "I need it. I need to talk to her again. I have to know."
Her breath caught in her throat and she shook her head. Dewey continued thumbing her tears away. He cupped her cheek in his palm and she saw the same desire in his eyes that Louie had. Great. That was what she'd thought. Two of the three triplets had a crush on her. Just what she needed-more complications. How she'd end up so lucky?
"There's something you don't know about the Stone," Dewey began cautiously.
"I thought you'd get the hint when I elbowed you," Louie snapped and stepped on his older brother's foot. Dewey yelped and released Webby to push Louie. Louie shoved him back and Huey groaned, rolling his eyes. He stepped in between them and wound up in the middle of their altercation. Well, she'd wanted attention off herself. She supposed she ought to take what she could get.
However, her interest was piqued. "What about the Stone?"
"It's-" Dewey started and Louie clamped a hand over his beak. Dewey tried to bite him and kicked him in the stomach. They rolled over, Huey again trying to intervene to no avail.
"It's what?" she pressed.
"Worry about it after we get it, okay?" Louie said. He huffed at Dewey, who growled back. Glancing up, he met Webby's gaze. "Uncle Scrooge said we'll search for it after Mrs. B's funeral."
Oh. That. Her stomach dropped and her intensity faded. Somehow, her grandmother's funeral had slipped her mind. Perhaps that was a good thing, although she'd been hyperfocused on the Stone to the exclusion of everything else.
"Right," she said quietly. She dropped her gaze again and the boys stopped fighting long enough to hug her. She hugged them back after a brief pause. Maybe...maybe she could tell Lena what had happened. Telling the boys was one thing. They were innocent and relatively carefree, excepting this drama with their mother. Lena, however, had grown up on the streets. She would know a thing or two, even if Webby didn't want to think about how she knew it.
That assumed that Lena wanted to talk to her. She'd been preoccupied with her father, which was understandable. As for Wren, Webby wasn't ready to confide in her mother, the reasons being two-fold. For one thing, she barely knew her mother more than she knew the therapist and didn't trust her yet. For another, her mother's similar experience had led to Webby's conception, which meant she wasn't keen on hearing about it.
The boys broke away from her and she sighed; Dewey came back to hug her again and she rested her head on his shoulder. He rubbed her back.
"You can tell us anything, you know," Dewey said. Her mind flashed back to her nightmare and, for some reason, to her tail stuck on a nail. That was oddly the most poignant part of her nightmare, having her tail stuck as she was ravaged.
"Maybe...maybe I can't tell you the details, but I can tell you something," she allowed. Dewey started to pull back, but she latched onto him.
"Like what?" Dewey asked.
She wished Lena would show up and distract them. Or that one of the adults would walk by and change the conversation. Things were getting too intense and she wished they could stop. She wished they could just be kids again. What was wrong with that? What was wrong with wanting to be innocent again?
"I've been having nightmares about...about Granny dying...or watching me...watching me…" she was stumbling over the words. She'd only said what had happened to her once before and that had been in the heat of the moment against Magica.
"Watching me being raped and not doing anything," she said in such a low voice that the triplets had to strain to hear her.
"She wouldn't have done that," Huey said.
"She would've kicked their ass," Louie agreed. He cupped her cheek.
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. "But I let it happen-"
"You didn't let it happen," Louie said hotly. "You didn't deserve it. And your grandmother wouldn't have sided with people who hurt you. She loved you, Webby. She was like us-she didn't want to see anything happen to you."
Webby shook her head, not refuting Louie so much as refusing to hear it. Her knees wobbled and they guided her into the living room, where Lena looked up from her conversation with her now passed out on the couch raven father. Lena took one look at Webby's face and whistled sharply. The boys looked up, startled.
"All right, girl talk," Lena said. "You can all clear out."
"No," Webby said weakly. "I want them here. You all deserve to hear it."
Maybe then they'd leave her alone and they could all get some peace.
She half walked to, half fell on the couch beside her girlfriend. Lena pulled her into her arms and stroked her hair. Maybe it was finally time to stop holding it all in. Maybe if she admitted this much, at least, she'd be able to sleep tonight. That seemed like a pipe dream, but she'd take what she could get.
"Right, so...you know about my running away from Lena and running into the Bloodhound Gang…" Webby began.
Wren knew that her daughter needed her. She'd neglected her for so long and now it was like her mother's intuition was coming in at her at three or four times the normal strength. The door to the living room was closed and she assumed that was where the kids had gone. If Webby had wanted her, she would have sought her out. Wren had to believe that. She didn't, but she would pretend otherwise.
Webby wouldn't seek her out when she was upset. She was too used to talking to the triplets and Lena. Besides, Wren got the impression Webby didn't often seek anyone out when it came to her problems. She preferred to suppress them and keep them from bothering anyone. It was a family trait.
She wanted to eavesdrop, but she was an adult and supposed to be above that. That didn't mean she wanted to be, but she would strive to be trustworthy. And eavesdropping didn't constitute as being trustworthy.
So she'd have to be patient and wait and hope Webby changed her mind. In the meanwhile...speaking with her daughter had stirred up a can of worms that was better off left alone. She only vaguely remembered her encounter with Steelbeak, the one-night stand that had led to Webby. As a result, while she did have PTSD and nightmares, they were nothing like Webby's in-depth nightmares, she sensed. Webby hadn't been intoxicated or drugged when she'd been raped, not to mention she'd been younger, which made it so much worse.
The fact of the matter was that she didn't feel like she belonged here in the manor. Scrooge McDuck had been kind enough to grant her a room here, only for Webby's benefit, and she knew he'd rather she holed up in a hotel nearby rather than impinge upon them. She knew Della and Donald, but only as passing acquaintances. She couldn't confide in them.
Not to mention she had to account for her missing so much of Webby's life. She'd missed all of the milestones. Wren grimaced, knowing there was no way to account for it. She couldn't ask her mother, either, because her mother was gone. No wonder Webby was so fixated on that stone. Wren wouldn't have minded a crack at it herself.
There would have to be a way for her to insert herself into Webby's life. Mrs. Beakley's death had left a hole there and a crueler person would say she could exploit it. She didn't intend to do that. She barely knew her daughter-she didn't want to risk scaring her off.
The only other mother she knew here was Della, who was batting a thousand with her sons. She could ask Donald, she supposed. Donald was the closest thing to a successful parental figure. Of course, half of what he said was unintelligible, but maybe if she could figure out what he wanted to say, she could work from there.
With that plan in mind, she set out to find Donald on his sailboat located in the middle of Scrooge McDuck's swimming pool. She wasn't sure why he didn't just move into the manor properly, but perhaps some fences couldn't be mended so quickly.
By the time she finished, Webby was wrung out and exhausted. She was curled up in Lena's lap and Lena was stroking her hair. It was soothing and all Webby wanted to do was go back to sleep and hopefully have a dreamless slumber. She could've used that elixir Scrooge had offered her earlier, though she didn't know where to locate more.
The triplets and Lena looked stunned. Well, Lena much less so than the triplets. She hadn't given them details, but she must have painted a strong enough picture for them to comprehend the gist of it. She wasn't used to divulging so much about her emotions and she sought out Lena's hand. Lena held it and then bent over to kiss Webby on the crown of the head.
"How could you keep all of this from us for so long?" Louie demanded.
"It was easy," Webby murmured. "You've got your own problems."
"That doesn't mean we can't be there for yours," Huey objected. "We care about you. You're, like, our sister."
"'Like' our sister," Louie muttered and Huey shot him a sharp look. Webby knew Louie and Dewey harbored more than sisterly feelings toward her.
"You need to tell us," Huey persisted. "You can't bottle it all up."
"But you were dealing with the stuff with your mom and then Poe showed up and…" she trailed off, as the boys and Lena were giving her dirty looks.
"We'll always be there for you," Huey promised. "But you have to tell us when you need to talk. We're not psychic, Webs."
"I know...I…" she yawned.
"Maybe we should leave her alone to take a nap," Lena suggested. "Or, you can leave and I'll stay here."
She seemed put out that Webby hadn't sought her out last night and Webby felt a pang of guilt over that. The boys shook their heads and Lena rolled her eyes.
"Fine, have it your way," she said. Webby closed her eyes and relaxed. Without even trying, she fell fast asleep within minutes.