After it's all over, Scrooge pulls him aside, mostly to check if he's done messing with the timeline. He seems equally concerned when Louie doesn't want to talk about it.

"It's fine, now," Louie assures him. "We're all alive and that's what matters."

Scrooge still looks worried, but then Dewey calls Louie over and Louie can't say no to his once-more alive brother, so he runs over to join in whatever game Dewey wants to play.

So Louie puts it behind him, for the most part. Dewey's alive, Scrooge was wrong, and everything is fine. He keeps the shards in his pocket to remind him not to take his siblings for granted and gets on with his life.

Except it doesn't take long to realise Dewey is an idiot.

They aren't even on an adventure when it clicks. They're running around the mansion, and Louie had never realised how dangerous the mansion could be until now, when Dewey just about trips down the stairs.

Louie catches him by the collar and pulls him back. Dewey laughs, unfazed by the near-death experience.

"Sorry," he says, as if he didn't just give Louie a heart attack. "Okay, race ya–"

"No more running!" Louie exclaims.

Dewey blinks at him. "Uh, that kind of takes the fun out of a race."

"You almost fell down the stairs!"

Dewey shrugs, unconcerned. "Yeah, okay, not the first time. Race ya!"

He takes off. Louie groans. Huey raises an eyebrow.

"Not that I'm not glad to see another one of us taking interest in safety," he says, "but are you okay?"

"Dewford is going to get himself killed," Louie seethes, before taking off after his idiot brother and leaving the smart one behind. After all the work Louie did to save his life, can't Dewey just – stay in one place? Preferably with a helmet. And maybe bubble-wrap.

Has Dewey always been so – so – Dewey? No, wait, that actually answers that question: yes, he has. Louie had just previously assumed that because he was so Dewey he couldn't die, and that clearly isn't true. So now Louie has to make sure he doesn't die.

He's beginning to realise that isn't going to be easy.


Their first adventure after Dewey's not-death goes as well as Louie expects.

They leave around noon, the day that would have been Dewey's funeral but now is just a totally normal day. Scrooge piles the lot of them into the plane. It's almost a relief to be out of the house, because now that Louie's paying attention, the mansion is kind of a death trap. The plane is a death trap too, actually, especially with Launchpad piloting. Louie makes sure Dewey is buckled before they even take off.

"Dude, not cool," mutters Dewey. He goes to unbuckle, but Louie pulls out a roll of duct tape and brandishes it threateningly and his blue-clad brother baulks.

"Okay," laughs Huey uneasily, taking the tape away. "Louie, you're being a bit… much."

"Relax!" says Scrooge brightly. "This adventure's perfectly safe. Eh, probably."

"What are we looking for?" asks Dewey, still managing to be full of energy even constrained by the seatbelt. "A lost relic? And ancient treasure? A CURSED AMULET!"

"No curses!" squawks Louie.

"Curses!" cheers Webby.

Huey rubs his forehead in exasperation.

"The lost plays of William Drakespeare," says Scrooge. He's enthusiastic about it in the way only old people who actually like old theatre can be.

"The lost plays of William Drakespeare!"

Oh, yeah, and Huey. How could he forget?

Huey's practically vibrating in his seat now, and given how much he'd loved Drakespeare in school, Louie's not surprised at all. Scrooge looks pleased by his show of excitement. Dewey, meanwhile, deflates like a popped balloon.

"Ugh, that sounds boring," he complains.

"William Drakespeare is only the best English poet there ever was!" Huey gushes. "He wrote such amazing plays – remember, we read one in class!"

"Oh, those are some of the plays Granny gave me growing up!" Webby beams. "I really liked them. There's more? It's like a sequel!"

"Boo," says Dewey. "I think I slept through the Drakespeare unit."

"No, I slept through that," Louie corrects. "You doodled all over the desk. And textbooks. And yourself."

"Hmm, right," agrees Dewey, looking like he wishes he had a marker to doodle all over himself again.

"Sleeping through Drakespeare," mutters Scrooge in disdain. He shakes his head and pulls out a very large book Louie would be fine not inheriting. "Well! This is the complete works of William Drakespeare – except his last, lost play, which I found a note about in ancient, invisible ink!"

"They had invisible ink back then?" asks Dewey. "That was, like, when you were a kid!"

Scrooge scowls at him. "I'm not that old."

"Could've fooled me," says Louie. "So, Drakespeare. Boring, stuffy, no danger whatsoever?"

"Shouldn't be," says Scrooge.

Louie sighs in relief. "Thank goodness."

"That's no fun," whines Dewey. "Where's the action? The booby-traps? Something fun like last time, with the suspense and the cave-in!"

Scrooge cringes. Louie's eye ticks.

"That was not fun!" he snaps. "That was dangerous! More dangerous than usual, you could have died!"

"Dude, we all could have died, it's normal," says Dewey. Louie bites his tongue to stop himself from blurting out that Dewey did die and that's why that adventure goes firmly in the not-fun list. "Adventure is all about almost dying – but not!"

"That's… not what adventure is about," says Huey.

"Eh, a little bit," admits Scrooge. Louie and Huey both glare at him. He grins sheepishly. "Well, this adventure, no one will almost die. It should be perfectly fine."

"Boring!" Dewey exclaims, throwing his hands in the air and crossing them in front of him with a huff. A voice in the back of Louie's head that sounds a lot like Huey points out that the way Dewey is sitting isn't really safe if they crash.

Okay, yeah, now he's getting a bit obsessive. He pushes that thought away.

"I, for one, look forward to a relaxing adventure for once," says Louie, leaning back and crossing his arms behind his head. No danger means less worrying about his idiot brother. Yeesh, how has Huey done it all these years? Maybe Louie needs to get his hands on a Junior Woodchuck Guidebook – maybe that's his secret.

It takes hours to get to wherever it is they're going, and at one point, Louie must've fallen asleep, because he's woken by Launchpad's, "Brace for crash-landing!"

"Don't you mean landing?" Louie asks groggily.

Dewey, who clearly has not slept and may have gotten his hands on coffee which is a bad idea, scoffs. "How many times have we flown with Launchpad."

Louie sinks in his seat. "Point."

The landing is as jarring as usual, but it wakes Louie up fully. Honestly, he's just glad he didn't have any more nightmares like he's been having recently. Maybe they're finally going away the more time passes with both of his brothers alive and well.

As soon as they've rolled to a mostly stop, Dewey unbuckles and runs towards the door, Webby close behind. Louie panics and runs after them, and Scrooge and Huey follow at a normal pace.

"A castle!" Dewey exclaims.

Sure enough, they've crashed right outside a castle. It's kind of impressive. Louie hopes Scrooge is right and it isn't booby-trapped or anything.

"The Castle of William Drakespeare," says Scrooge. "Come along, kids. The lost play awaits!"

"No wandering off," Louie hisses to Dewey.

Dewey frowns at him. "What's your issue? You're being weird."

"Well, maybe if you weren't so reckless, Huey and I wouldn't have to worry about you so much."

"Hey, don't bring me into this," protests Huey. "Uh – wait, why are you two arguing?"

"Louie's being weird," says Dewey.

"Is that all you can say right now?" Louie asks dryly.

"No fighting, kids," says Scrooge. "Leave your brother alone, Dewey, he means well."

"Oh, sure, take his side," Dewey mutters.

Louie shoves his hands in his pockets to curl around the shards. They're pretty warm, but Louie expects that's because they've been surrounded by cloth for so long. Sometimes he kind of wants to strangle his brother, but that does go against keeping him alive, so he resists the urge.

For the most part, though dreary, the castle seems booby-trap free. Louie is relieved. All he has to worry about is staircases, maybe a few loose rocks, not that deadly and easy to keep Dewey safe from.

"Which of you is good at riddles?" calls Scrooge.

"Me!" Huey, Webby, and Louie all yell at once. They blink at each other. Louie mentally admits that the other two are probably better, but sometimes he's good at riddles. Scrooge sighs.

"Well, all of you, then," he says, gesturing towards a plaque on the wall.

The three of them walk forward. Dewey crosses his arms and huffs. Louie almost feels bad about leaving his brother out, but Dewey's really not great with riddles.

"Oooh, a Drakespeare puzzle!" squeals Webby.

Huey's eyes light up. Louie takes one look at the iambic pentameter (yes, he knows what that is) and goes, "Nope."

However, by the time he's turned back around, Dewey is gone.

Dewey is gone.

Two seconds, he looked away for two seconds!

"We lost Dewey!" Louie shrieks. Panic grips him. He's not ready to be Huey and Louie, and he's pretty sure this was his only chance, and if Dewey's gone and gotten himself killed, that's it, he's dead-dead.

The others turn. None of them look remotely as alarmed as Louie feels, which is kind of offensive. Louie is not overreacting. Who knows what's in this castle? Just because Scrooge doesn't think it's booby-trapped doesn't mean it isn't! Louie does not have time to deal with this today.

"Eh, he'll be fine," says Scrooge. They return their attention to the riddle, apparently unconcerned about the disaster triplet running off on his own to get killed.

"I have to do everything around here!" Louie grumbles. He sticks his hands in his pockets again and is about to go find Dewey, but when his fingers touch the shards he yanks them out with a yelp because they're no longer warm, they're hot. Like, burn Louie's fingers hot.

"Louie?" says Huey anxiously, by his side in an instant. The riddle is forgotten as big brother mode takes over and he grabs Louie's hands to inspect the burns.

"What's the matter, lad?" asks Scrooge, brow furrowed.

"What happened to your hands…?" mumbles Huey.

Louie jerks away from him and wraps his hands in his sleeves to pull out the shards. They're glowing faintly. Huey's eyes widen, even if Louie is pretty sure his brother has no idea what the shards are from.

"Woah," whispers Webby.

"Oh, no," says Louie. On cue, the shards light up, now blindingly bright. Louie winces and looks away but doesn't release them. He isn't sure if dropping them will make it worse.

The bright light materialises into some sort of person-like form. Louie can't tell what it's supposed to be. Evil, he guesses. It seems to have a beak. And glowing red eyes. Oh, Louie doesn't like glowing red eyes.

"Bless me bagpipes," mutters Scrooge.

The thing scans the room, or seems to, before its eyes land on Louie and narrow into red slits.

"Time has been disturbed!" the thing booms.

Okay, so maybe changing the timeline wasn't as simple as he'd first thought. Scrooge had warned him about releasing an ancient evil. Technically, he still thought it was worth it to save Dewey. But why was this thing appearing now? He'd time-travelled a while ago.

Wait. Come to think of it, right now is probably about when he time-travelled in the original timeline–

Oh, yeah, that explains it.

Huey tries to stand protectively between Louie and Webby and the thing. Scrooge turns to glare at Louie, who shrinks back and drops the shards. He smiles awkwardly.

"So I released an ancient evil after all," says Louie weakly. "Happens to the best of us, right?"

A/N: Aw, don't worry, Louie, has to happen to everyone eventually. Wouldn't be a story if it wrapped up that easily. I did some minor research to find an adventure for them, and, fun fact, looking for the lost play of William Drakespeare is actually an '87 episode! It seemed like a doable mini-adventure that we could have other disasters happen on, so, tada! Hope you guys enjoyed this new (rapidly posted?) chapter! Love you guys!