I do not own any of the characters in this story; they all belong to Disney. I am only borrowing them for entertainment purposes, not for profit. By the way, thank you to my loyal reviewers! It means a lot when I know you are still interested. I hope I'm still living up to your expectations, not to mention my own!
Darkwing felt his eyes slide open. Everything was fuzzy. He felt somehow comfortable and warm, but something was wrong. He needed to be somewhere…
"Gosalyn!"
All in a flash, Darkwing's memory cleared. He opened his eyes wide and found himself seated on one of the blue armchairs, wrapped in a blanket. How had he gotten here? He didn't remember falling asleep at all. But then, he hadn't gotten much sleep of late. Stumbling to his webbed feet, Darkwing made his way back across the Tower to Gosalyn's bedside.
It had been four days since Gosalyn had been kidnapped by Negaduck. Darkwing had kept his end of the bargain and continued to journey to see his enemy every evening at midnight to recover a small portion of the antidote, the only cure to the poison that was wreaking havoc on his daughter's body. Over the course of those four days, Darkwing had barely slept, eaten next to nothing, and had refused to leave the Tower even for a minute. Launchpad, Morgana, and Honker had remained with him whenever they could, bringing him things from home as he required them, making him meals that went untouched, and urging him to get some sleep when they thought he would listen. More than once, over the course of those four days, Launchpad had carried his exhausted partner from Gosalyn's bedside, fast asleep, and tucked him in elsewhere in the Tower. Honker couldn't stay in the Tower as much as he would have liked because of school, but Launchpad and Morgana stayed on alternating shifts, with at least one of them there at all times. They had realized early on that there was little they could do for Gosalyn, so they dedicated themselves to keeping Darkwing healthy and rested. He usually ignored their efforts.
As Darkwing stumbled back towards his the end of the Tower where Gosalyn had spent the last four days in bed, Morgana, who was sitting beside the duckling, looked up. She gave a weary smile. She, like Darkwing, had not been sleeping well these last few days. Before Darkwing could even ask, Morgana answered all the questions she knew were coming.
"Yes, she's still much the same; no, she didn't wake and take any water; yes, she still has a fever, and by the way, it's getting to be time for you to go out," she said gently, reaching a hand out to the crime-fighter. Her eyes were wide and sad. It was terrible to watch Gosalyn in this state. In some ways, however, Morgana thought it was even worse to watch her father. Eating only when he was physically weak from lack of food, sleeping only when his body gave out on him, Darkwing's feathers were becoming yellowed and unhealthy-looking and his beak drooped. "He's wasting away as he watches her do the same," Morgana thought sadly.
Darkwing ignored the hand Morgana offered him and instead moved to Gosalyn's side. The duckling had not improved. Darkwing was starting to worry in a new direction. Of course he had been worried from the first moment he had known she was in Negaduck's power, but as every day passed, a more sinister apprehension began to grow in the back of his mind. The original batch of antidote had revived Gosalyn a bit, lessening her fever and restoring her enough to speak coherently. But the subsequent shots of the potion had seemed to be less and less effective at healing the child. She still had moments of lucidity, and she still wavered somewhere between a burning fever and a mild one, but a realization was growing in Darkwing that his daughter was not getting well. Indeed, she seemed to be growing steadily more ill. And, unlike his previous fears about her safety, watching her the last few days had convinced him that this was not an idle, over-protective father's fear. The possibility that Gosalyn would not recover was slowly becoming a reality.
"She's dying, Morg," Darkwing said in a low voice.
"Well, you'll get the antidote in an hour or so and that will help," Morgana began, trying to sound cheerful, but down deep, she feared it, too. Seeing the look in Dark's eyes, she thought better of her positive comment and instead continued, "but you're right, you know. She's not getting better." She paused. "I don't know how much longer this can go on."
Darkwing looked at Morgana. Her usually well-kept hair was falling around her face in places, as if it refused to stay in its usual neat style. Her eyes seemed larger than usual, and there were dark bags that he hadn't seen before that seemed to be slowly growing across her cheeks. He was dimly aware that she had not slept more than a few hours at a time since the beginning, and looking in her eyes, he saw what he suspected she could see in his own, fear and despair. He turned his face away.
"I know."
"Then, what are we going to do?"
"I don't know, Morg." Every time he spoke, it was more quietly and dejectedly than the last, and that became too much for the sorceress.
"But, Dark, we have to do something! We can't let her…" she cut herself off. No one had yet mentioned the possibility of Gosalyn's death out loud. No one wanted to think about it.
Darkwing raised his eyes to her own again. Morgana could see the war in him between despair and anger, grief and fury. She could tell that he was burning with vengeance as dearly as he was weeping with sorrow. She was honestly surprised he had been so quiet for so long. It wasn't his style to take this sort of thing lying down. She had expected him to go after Negaduck, to stop this cycle before it was too late. Now, she wasn't so sure that the hero could stop him. Morgana wondered if it might not already be too late.
--==OOO==--
Miles away, on the rooftop of what had once been the Police Station but was now deserted and showed signs of fire, Negaduck laughed with glee. He hadn't been this happy in a long, long time. The first nights of glory had been filled with bank-robbing and jewelry heists, but on the third night he had taken to using certain recognizable structures in the St. Canard skyline as tests for his new configurations of explosives. Taking over the police station was too sweet an experience not to savor. Only once before had everything gone as well, when the Fearsome Five had ruled the city. But then, that group of Justice Ducks had stopped him. Not this time!
"This time, the city is mine and I don't even have to put up with those other idiots!" Negaduck shouted to himself. "And no Just-Dumb Lucks to mess it all up, either! This is great!" His laugher echoed so nicely and effectively off the other buildings in the area, Negaduck kept on laughing until he knew the sound had traveled halfway across the city. There was something glorious in knowing that all over St. Canard, people winced in fear and locked their doors and hid in closets at that sound. He smiled such a smile that his beak had to stretch to accommodate it.
"This is working out better than I ever could have imagined," he said to himself, passing down from the roof and into the Police Station proper, where he had made his new headquarters in the Chief of Police's office. "Darkwuss is out of my way, the police are history, and I'm the most powerful, most feared duck in the city!" Looking around the office, Negaduck spotted the beaker with the antidote, his hold over Darkwing, sitting on a nearby table. He moved closer and examined it with a serious eye. It was only half full now.
"Hmm. I better stretch this thing out again or else my fun is going to run out before I'm ready to let it." He took the beaker and carried it over to the sink. Almost humming to himself, he ran some water into it until it looked full again. "There! That ought to do it!" As he returned it to it's place, he wondered what the effects of diluting the potion the last two days had had on the duckling it was intended for. She was probably not looking so hot. Negaduck shook the thought off.
"Aw, she's a tough kid and besides, the sicker she is, the less likely that hero is going to try anything funny!" But somewhere inside, Negaduck was becoming aware that he couldn't dilute the potion forever, that he would eventually have nothing at all to offer Darkwing, assuming that the girl even survived that long. But he brushed that out of his mind. He'd blow up that bridge when he biked over it. For now, it was time to have some more fun.
--==OOO==--
The next morning, a loud whirring noise brought Darkwing out of his quiet, near-sleep state as he sat holding Gosalyn's hand. The shot of the antidote from the night before had woken the child about four hours after it had been administered, and after a half a glass of water she had collapsed back into fitful sleep. Darkwing had noticed that over the last day or so, she had seemed more restless in her sleep, as though having nightmares or being unable to rest deeply. It worried him. He knew she should be sleeping more, getting hours and hours of deep, unconscious sleep that would aid in healing her of the poison. The fact that now it seemed increasingly as though she could not get that deep sleep meant that her only way of fighting off the poison between shots was eroding. Darkwing had no idea what to do about it.
The whirring became louder and Darkwing felt a sharp whack on the head from something hard. Turning, he found himself face to beak with the Flashquack, SHUSH's messenger to him. It madly printed out a little sheet, which said, "Contact SHUCH immediately." Darkwing groaned. He didn't want to leave Gosalyn for a minute, but he really felt that J. Gander Hooter deserved some kind of answer. "He might think I'm dead of Negaduck's poison," he thought, and a part of him wished he had indeed been the villain's target instead of his daughter.
"Launchpad?" Darkwing called half-heartedly. The pilot jumped from where he had been sitting across the Tower and practically ran over.
"Yeah, DW?" he asked anxiously. Looking at his partner, Launchpad could see that Darkwing's vigil was really taking its toll on him. The simple duck worried about them both more than he knew how to deal with. He only wanted everything to be all right again and for DW and Gos to be a happy family again.
"Look, can you sit with Gosalyn for a minute, LP? I've got to take this," he said, wearily gesturing at the message. Launchpad nodded and took the chair at the bedside. Darkwing transferred Gosalyn's hand gently over to his partner, glad of his company. He leaned down to whisper in her ear.
"I've got to go away for a bit now, Gos, but I'll be back. Launchpad will be here if you need anything, sweetie. I love you, my daughter."
As he walked over to the computer console, Launchpad could see something in his gait that he didn't like. It wasn't exhaustion; he had seen DW exhausted before, but this wasn't the same stumble. It was hard to figure out. He just didn't seem to be as tired anymore. It was more like he was so unhappy that he couldn't quite wake out of a fog of some kind. But as to what fog, well, Launchpad could only sympathize.
--==OOO==--
"Darkwing? Darkwing, is that you? Are you all right?" asked J. Gander. He had been glad to get a transmission from the hero, but he was shocked at his appearance. The head of SHUSH wondered if maybe his worst fears had been confirmed. Darkwing looked so unkempt, as though he hadn't had rest or food for days. The masked crime-fighter's face looked haggard and there was something in his eyes that even J. Gander shied away from looking at. It was too terrible to see that darkness in his friend's eyes.
"Yeah, it's me, J. Gander. What do you want?" Darkwing asked. He wasn't being insolent or rude; it was weariness.
"Well, er, I just wanted to know what was going on," J. Gander said, trying to return to professionalism. "You know, Negaduck is tearing up the city and you haven't been seen in days, so I wanted to know why you weren't out there, dealing with him." Darkwing sighed.
"No, I'm not poisoned," Darkwing said with such resentment that the SHUSH leader was surprised, "but I can't do anything about Negaduck. You better find some other hero."
"Wha-what do you mean?"
"I just can't do it," Darkwing said, his frustration starting to show.
"Well, I just don't understand. I mean, you don't appear to have suffered the effects of the poison he stole, although I must say I've seen you look healthier, so I can't imagine what can be keeping you from going out there to stop him before he destroys the city!" J. Gander would never have admitted it, but he felt rather betrayed by Darkwing. How could a hero let so many innocent people down in their time of need?
Something in Darkwing snapped. It was the same thing that had angered him every single night when he endured the torments of Negaduck, who exalted in the whole situation every chance he got. It was the same thing that Morgana and Launchpad had seen at different times in his eyes. And whatever it was that snapped, it snapped loudly enough for Launchpad to turn in surprise all the way across the Tower.
"I CAN'T!" Darkwing roared, jumping to his feet, his eyes flashing and his beak pulled in a nasty snarl. "That-that blackguard didn't use that potion on me, for all I wish he had. He used it on MY DAUGHTER!" Taking a breath and continuing, this time in a snarling voice that neither he nor J. Gander knew he could make, "And now he's got me trained like a puppy, bound to leave him alone in return for bits and pieces of the antidote, and meanwhile, she's DYING and there is NOTHING I CAN DO!"
J. Gander was taken aback. Slowly his mind came to several realizations: that Darkwing had a daughter, which he had not known, that Negaduck had used the poison and antidote in a manner far more villainous than any he had feared, that Darkwing seemed powerless to stop him, locked in a high-stakes ransom game with the scoundrel, and that Darkwing was more emotional and furious over it all than he had ever known the hero could be. Before his eyes, over the video screen, Darkwing crumpled into the chair again. Where there had been rage and hatred and frustration before, now it was replaced with defeat and sorrow and pain. He covered his eyes with his hand for a moment, his beak twitching as if trying not to reveal what went on in his mind.
"Well…well…I…this is very unexpected…I never realized…" J. Gander pulled himself together and said, "I am sorry, Darkwing, that this has happened. Maybe if you could send us a sample of the antidote, perhaps Sara Bellum could replicate it."
Darkwing looked up, defeat written over his face. "I can't. I don't dare. What he gives me is so small, and still it seems to do her little good. If I gave you enough for a sample, she wouldn't have enough to carry her through to the next dose. I can't risk it." There was heavy emotion in his voice.
"Then perhaps…," J. Gander paused. He knew he was dealing with someone who was not entirely rational, but he felt he had to say what was on his mind. "Well, you say she's dying, right?" He didn't need a verbal answer; Darkwing's face said it all. "Then what have you got to lose by letting him run free? Maybe, just maybe, you can take him down and get the full antidote to her at once, or at least get some of it to our lab for testing. Isn't it worth a try?"
Darkwing felt his eyes narrow. The analytical part of his brain, the scientist and detective, agreed with J. Gander and had been trying to convince him of the same. But his heart refused to listen. Quiet, furious anger welled up inside him.
"No. It isn't," he said simply. J. Gander sputtered a bit.
"But, I don't see how…"
"She's my daughter. She's my life. I won't risk her on my own failed skills as a hero. I have everything to lose in her. She's my baby. I won't consider it."
"But, Darkwing, if you don't, SHUSH is completely incapable of dealing with him. He'll hurt so many other people and we really don't have the same instinct for dealing with him that you have. We've tried, but he eludes us and acts in a way that just doesn't fit with the basic logic of our agents. The city needs you, Darkwing!"
The masked mallard turned away, his shoulders stiff. "Gosalyn needs me," he replied, "and if I had been the hero you think I am, she wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. I put her here and I don't intend to make it any worse than it is. You're on your own. St. Canard can deal with its own problems. I've got my own to worry about." Before J. Gander could respond, Darkwing cut the connection. As he stomped back towards Gosalyn's bed, he caught the Flashquack as it flew up to him again. Without even looking, he flung it against a wall and listened as it shattered into fragments.
--==OOO==--
She felt terrible. The first part of "terrible" that she could define was her chest; it felt as though the Thunderquack were parked on top of her and she could barely breathe. After that, she became aware of an ache that started behind her eyes and went all the way through her head and down her neck. She tried to open her eyes, but the lids felt heavy. How long had it been since she had last woken? It seemed like forever. Her thoughts were sluggish, floating in a bog that used to be her brain. "Maybe this is what happens if you sit too close to the TV. No, that's supposed to ruin your eyes, it's the video games that rot your brains…" she thought. There was a slight buzzing in her ear. She tried to focus on it and realized that the buzzing was actually her father yelling. Yelling? Her ears had trouble processing it, but she tried hard.
"He used it on MY DAUGHTER! And now he's got me trained like a puppy, bound to leave him alone in return for bits and pieces of the antidote, and meanwhile, she's DYING and there is NOTHING I CAN DO!"
Dying? Could she really be dying? The rest of the conversation fell away as her mind tried to think. Yes, she was feeling awful, but in some strange way she felt more awake than she had since, well, since Negaduck poisoned her. Shouldn't she be getting better? Didn't that mean she was going to be okay? Her dad had assured her she was healing whenever she had been awake before.
Dying. She'd never really thought about it before. But there was something in her father's voice…she couldn't make out any more words, but she could almost hear his frustration, his anger. He was hurt! Hurt because she was sick and there was nothing he could do? She tried to listen again.
"…and if I had been the hero you think I am, she wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. I put her here and I don't intend to make it any worse than it is. You're on your own. St. Canard can deal with its own problems. I've got my own to worry about."
He wasn't stopping Negaduck? That was bad! She tried to twitch, to call out, something. Even through her slowly thinning fog, she felt like she needed to say something. He was a hero. Heroes saved people. Didn't they?
--==OOO==--
Launchpad was so distracted by the loud conversation between J. Gander and DW that he never saw Gosalyn's body twitch, nor did he see her eyes open for the briefest of moments. He felt that Darkwing needed someone to talk to, and although he felt bad about it, the truth was, he agreed with the SHUSH agent. Rising from the chair and disentangling himself from Gosalyn's weak hand, he quietly moved toward his partner, intending to put an arm around him. When he caught sight of Darkwing's face, however, he held back. He'd only seen such blackness, such anger on his face once before, when Taurus Bulba had tried to hurt Gosalyn. Frankly, it scared him.
"DW?" Launchpad began hesitantly. Darkwing ignored him and continued towards Gosalyn's bed, but Launchpad stood firmly in between.
"DW, I really think you should talk to someone about this."
Darkwing didn't want to hear it. Although he rarely felt anything violent towards his good-natured sidekick, he growled from the side of his beak, "Get out of my way, LP, or I will go through you."
"Now, listen, DW, this is important!" Launchpad shouted. Darkwing's head came up and he stared the much taller duck straight in the eye.
"I know it is! I know how important it is better than you ever could! She's MY DAUGHTER!" The hero balled his fists and glared at his friend as though staring Negaduck himself in the face. "So don't you start lecturing me about what's important. I should never have let this happen. If I had known what was important, I would have given this up and protected her! Then she'd still be all right!"
Launchpad closed his eyes. He understood that Darkwing blamed himself for Gosalyn's being kidnapped, but somehow he just didn't feel like his friend had it quite right.
"But, DW, I always thought you did know what was important. Isn't that why you became a hero in the first place? Because it was important to protect people?"
"I should have protected her." The words trickled from his beak like tears from his eyes.
"Ah, ya did the best anybody could do," Launchpad said encouragingly. "No one could've guessed what Negaduck was going to do. You couldn't control him."
"But if I'd only given it up before, like I tried that other time." Darkwing remembered when he had decided that his life as a crime-fighter was too dangerous when he had a daughter who needed him. He'd become the model parent for a while, right up until Quackerjack had kidnapped Gosalyn and the other students in her school play and tried to force them into his own toy-making army. He had come for her then, and when it seemed like they were lost, had not regretted keeping his hero alive for her sake, just in case.
"She wouldn't have wanted you to." Launchpad said quietly. Darkwing looked as though he'd been struck.
"What did you say?"
"I said she wouldn't have wanted you to. Give up being a hero, I mean," Launchpad repeated. Darkwing's eyes grew wide. In all these days, through all the hours he had worried over her, cared for her, wept beside her, not once had he really looked at it from the perspective of what Gosalyn wanted. Turning away from Launchpad, Darkwing stood looking at the still form on the bed.
"You know, LP, you're right, I guess. Gosalyn hated it when I gave up being a hero for her sake. It's what brought us together. I think it's what gives her strength to do all the things she does, like sports and facing off with bullies and everything else. Sometimes…" Darkwing trailed off, but in his mind, he was remembering something. He remembered the fear in Gosalyn's eyes when things had gone wrong and she had ended up, many times, in danger. But he also remembered seeing her courage return, only after seeing him come after her. As he thought about it, whenever Gosalyn had been in danger, her spirit and hope had returned as soon as she had seen him, doing all that he could to help her.
Slowly the realization dawned. He was Gosalyn's hero.
Not only that. Darkwing started to see that being a hero meant more to Gosalyn, indeed, to the both of them, than they had realized. It was everything that they both admired in each other and in themselves. Living that life was what they were both born and bred for. Darkwing sighed to himself. Somehow, Launchpad was right. Gosalyn would never have wanted him to give up being a hero for her sake. Never.
"But what can I do?" he asked aloud, looking still at her resting in the bed across the Tower. Launchpad put a hand on his shoulder.
"Well, you know, you can still be a hero for her." Darkwing looked up at his sidekick. Launchpad continued, "Save her! Stop playing Negaduck's game and save the city! Isn't that what heroes usually do?" he asked.
"Yes, Launchpad, that's exactly what heroes do," Darkwing said slowly. His mind was working again. The emotions that had paralyzed him for days were starting to focus themselves into something more constructive. He was starting to think, to plan, and to feel a bit of strength in himself. And, the fact was, Darkwing found himself forced to admit that J. Gander had been right. He really didn't have anything to lose. Neither did Gosalyn.
"Launchpad, you stay here," Darkwing commanded in a voice that warranted no debate. With a more deliberate stride than his sidekick had seen in days, he moved towards Gosalyn's bedside, his mind working fast. He looked down on her tenderly and took her weak hand.
"Gos? I've got to go. The city needs me, and I know you would be proud of me if I helped save it, wouldn't you? For your sake, sweetie, I'll do it," he said, swallowing back a lump in his throat. Leaving her didn't seem like such a good idea when he was faced with the reality of her condition. "I know it looks bad, but we don't have anything to lose, do we?" he asked more to himself than to her. He held her hand for a moment and fancied he felt her move to hold his more tightly. No, it had been his imagination.
"I'll come back to you, Gosalyn, I promise, and then everything will be okay. You just have to hang in there and get well for me. That's the best thing you can do. I won't let Negaduck use this to control either of us anymore." He wiped his own tears away and kissed her gently on the forehead.
"I love you, Gosalyn Mallard, my daughter."
--==OOO==--
Gosalyn fought within the confines of her own mind. Slowly and steadily, she had been waking up, finding that sleep was harder and harder to fall back into, and so she had strained to listen to her dad and Launchpad talking. By the time Darkwing had come back to her bedside, she had overheard enough to know what he was going to do.
When he came to bid her goodbye, Gosalyn had been forced to try her very hardest to stay still. It wasn't particularly difficult, since she still felt more exhausted than she had ever been before. However, the fog around her body and her mind had been receding rapidly, and she knew for herself that she was going to be able to move soon. But this was something she wanted to keep from her father.
"If dad finds out I'm coming around, he won't go," she thought to herself. "I've got to stay still and make him go be a hero. Then, when he comes back, I'll surprise him!" It was hard for her to keep herself still when he stood over her bed and spoke so softly. She was sure she had unconsciously tightened her small hand around his as an act of comfort, although whether she was giving or receiving comfort was anybody's guess. But he hadn't appeared to have noticed.
As Darkwing prepared to leave the Tower on foot, so as to remain under Negaduck's radar for as long as possible, Gosalyn's thinking started to change. She wasn't sure if she was making less sense or more, but she felt very sure of the thoughts that trickled through her mind.
"Dad thinks I'm dying. Well, if he's really this desperate, he might be right. Then why do I feel so good? Maybe he's wrong. Maybe I am fighting off the poison and he needs to know that so he won't be handicapped when he's fighting Negaduck. But what if he's right? What if I am dying?" Gosalyn's mind when quiet for a time.
"Well," she thought to herself at last, "either way, he needs me. If I'm not dying, he needs to see that so he can be the best hero without worrying about me and that stupid antidote. And if I am dying, then if I can go and pretend to be getting well, he'll fight his best and never know the difference until afterwards." Fear prickled in her mind then. What would happen to her if she pushed herself to her limits so soon? What would happen "after" the fight if she really were dying? Gosalyn couldn't answer those questions. But she kept coming back to one point.
"If I am dying, then I want to go out fighting, like my dad."
Slowly, she began making her body work for her again.
--==OOO==--
Launchpad wasn't sitting right beside Gosalyn's bed now that DW had left. He had moved over to do some work on the Thunderquack, mostly to distract himself. He was worried about how desperate the situation was to prompt Darkwing to leave his daughter in this state, even though he knew it needed to be done. It was confusing, this clash of what was best against what was, well, also best. Fixing things sometimes helped him with situations that were confusing.
As he rested on his back under the Thunderquack, trying desperately to tighten a bolt he had been working on, he thought he heard a sound from the other end of the Tower. Quickly turning to look, he scanned the area. Gosalyn's bed with her still tucked in, the computer equipment, old gadgets and devices that DW no longer used or needed. Nothing unusual. He shook his head and went back to the Thunderquack.
Another sound. This time he was sure he heard something. He stood up and moved out into the Tower. The gadgets were fine, the computer wasn't any different, and Gosalyn…
Gosalyn was missing!
Launchpad ran over to the bed, but there was definitely no duckling in it. The sheets were soaked with sweat, and the imprint of where her body had lain for so long was clear. The blankets were sort of pulled from the bed, as though she had tried to pull them off to the side. How on earth had she gotten out of bed? He couldn't imagine her trying to walk in her condition. He could see feathers of hers on the floor. As he knelt down to pick one up, he heard a loud ZOOM!
Turning around, he was able to catch a last glimpse of purple dash from the Tower. Slowly the realization dawned on him as he examined the gadgets left behind. One in particular was missing, one Gosalyn had once claimed for her own instead of letting her father use it when he was injured. It was the one thing of DW's that Gosalyn could really use well, especially since it had been put back together under her watchful eye some months before. Although the Hoverquack hadn't left the Tower since the second encounter with Taurus Bulba, Launchpad was sure it still worked. And Gosalyn knew it too. Perplexed and astounded, he did the only thing he could think of at first: he sat down on the floor and knocked his forehead with his hand.
"DW's going to kill me…"