The door crashed to the floor amidst a dust cloud that would give Ammonia Pine an aneurism. Gosalyn rolled her eyes as she walked inside, not even bothering to prop the still broken door back in the doorway.

"You're getting lazy in your old age!" she called, her voice echoing down the decrepit dusty hall. She glanced around, waiting for Negaduck to pound down the stairs or out from the kitchen at any moment; he was so touchy about his age.

But there was nothing. No thundering footsteps. No grumbles. No … anything. The house was empty. Rooms were nothing more than vacant caverns that her flashlight bounced around.

Shrugging her duffel bag more firmly on her shoulder, Gosalyn tried to ignore the growing unease settling in her gut as she walked from room to room, looking for Negaduck.

The living room was untouched, couch cushions sliced open and spilling out their soft contents. Weapons littered the floor, abandoned for a bigger brother or deconstructed, some of its more vital parts taken and installed in something else. The TV screen was cracked and sitting on its side.

And still no sign of Negaduck.

Maybe the kitchen?

Other than a few new dishes piled atop dirtier counterparts in the sink, everything looked untouched from her last visit. Negaduck's dirty dish tower really was a thing of beauty; each of them precariously stacked on top of one another in such a precise way that gravity couldn't drag it down. Eventually, Negaduck would grow bored with the current tower and grab one of the foundation dishes, sending the rest of them crashing to the ground in a mess of broken porcelain. Then he'd start all over again, carefully balancing each dirty dish in the sink, one on top of the other, until he decided to send it crumbling back down again.

Assuming Negaduck had to be on the second level, Gosalyn took the stairs two at a time, scanning her bedroom with her flashlight before she tossed the duffel onto the bed.

"I think Dad's onto us," Gosalyn explained, her voice raised. Just because Negaduck hadn't shown himself yet didn't necessarily mean he wasn't here. He could be planning some sort of surprise attack. It wasn't like him to plan surprise attacks — he preferred to hit hard, fast and with as much chaos as he could muster — but it was not out of the realm of possibilities. After all, Gosalyn wouldn't be expecting a surprise attack from him, so it would be the perfect time to execute one.

She stayed alert as she continued talking into the silence, trying to appear as calm as possible to keep him off guard. "I'm leaving my Quiverwing costumes here until he gets less suspicious," Gosalyn unpacked her Negaverse Quiverwing tunic and pants, hanging them up in her closet. She screwed up her face as she grabbed one of her capes. Even the plastic wrapping around it couldn't hold back the pungent scent from wafting up her nose.

"The dry cleaners couldn't do anything with the smell. And I took the cape to a couple different places. Remind me to thank Jambalaya Jake for his swamp gas."

Gosalyn tossed the offending cape on the floor at the foot of her bed. The others she carefully hung up with her hero costumes.

Okay, seriously, if Negaduck was going to make his move, it had to be now. Right? This was just getting ridiculous.

"Anyway," she continued, "Dad's paranoid. To a new extreme. He hasn't come out and said anything yet, but I know he thinks we're working together. Which, I mean, we are. So… I'm handling it. Sort of. Trying to handle it."

And by "handling it" she meant she was hiding all the evidence that she and Negaduck were in any way affiliated.

She had packed last night when her father was out busting criminals; Gosalyn swinging back home after Launchpad and Darkwing had taken off in the Thunderquack. She put her bag together, including her newly laundered Negaverse Quiverwing costumes, even the foul-smelling cape from her encounter with the bayou duo. (Seriously, thanks a million Jake. She'd probably smell like a swamp for the rest of her life.) After getting everything together, she'd done a sweep of her room, making sure anything she'd brought home from the Negaverse would go back there into hiding. Until her father got less paranoid.

Or until he got distracted by something else. Because, really, he was always paranoid.

Not that his paranoia wasn't warranted this time. Gosalyn was in league with Darkwing's arch-iest of arch nemeses.

His words.

"You seem to be out doing a lot of recon work on your own," Darkwing had said a few days ago when Gosalyn had returned home after wrapping up the Steelbeak conundrum in the Negaverse. "Any leads or new information you wanna share with the class?"

"Not really." Gosalyn had smiled at Launchpad, high five-ing him as way of a hello.

"I haven't seen Negaduck — my arch-iest of my arch nemeses — lately. I was wondering if you might know something about it."

"Why would I know anything about Negaduck?" Gosalyn had asked. Lied.

Darkwing had sighed. "The Darkwing Duck team is exactly that, Gosalyn. A team. We need to work together to take down the villains that are violating this vivacious…"

"… Village?" Gosalyn had offered, raising an eyebrow at her father.

"No, no, I can do better! Um… Work together to take down the bad guys who are bamboozling our beloved…"

"Quit while you're ahead," Gosalyn had mentioned, sharing a smile with Launchpad.

"No, really, I've got this! Work together to take down the scoundrels who are… No! The desperadoes who are desecrating…"

Needless to say, he didn't bring up teamwork again that night. But he had been using the words "team" and "honest" and "together" a lot more lately.

Which meant he'd figured it out.

Probably.

He was, at the very least, onto something.

Whether it was the "Gosalyn was partnering with Negaduck in his crime boss takeover of the Negaverse" something remained to be seen.

But Gosalyn didn't like to take chances.

Hence…

"Well, if you aren't gonna show, I'm just going back to St. Canard. And if you're not here, and I am starting to think you aren't, then I feel really dumb."

Gosalyn trudged back down the stairs, her eyes rolling heavenward when her flashlight beam landed on the front door, the wooden portal lying where she'd left it in the hall.

Which cinched it.

Negaduck wasn't home.

So she'd been talking to herself the whole time.

Fantastic.

"Seriously, how hard is it to fix a door?" she muttered. She picked it up and propped it in the doorframe on her way out. Negaduck would be pissed when he came home and found the door lying in the hall. More realistically, he'd probably freak and nuke the place, convinced that someone had broken in. Then he'd need to change his base of operations and Gosalyn had just started to get comfortable in the Negaverse version of her home, so moving would be just the worst.

Lightly leaping over cracks in the pavement and expertly weaving through the rusting cars in the streets, Gosalyn picked her way back through the Negaverse to the Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice Bakery.

She had once asked why Negaduck had chosen such a normal place for his portal into the prime universe — Gosalyn's home — and he'd muttered something about not being the first one to find it and, so, he hadn't been the one who'd decided where it was. And when she'd pointed out that he could have picked a whole new location when he'd rebuilt the bridge between the universes after Darkwing had destroyed the first one, Negaduck had glowered at her. He'd said that obviously he had to use the same building as before; it would be the thing everyone least expected.

Duh.

How could she even consider another option?

Heading to the back of the bakery, she jumped into the cake that served as the portal between the Negaverse and her own St. Canard.

It had taken her some time to get used to floating between one doorway and another, mostly because the portal left her weightless.

Her first voyage, with Negaduck as her guide, had sent her spiraling into a panic attack, her heart racing and vision tunneling as she gasped in short breaths. When Negaduck had told her it was like swimming, she'd nearly passed out, unable to get enough oxygen through her quick gasps for air. Quickly realizing his mistake, Negaduck had gently grabbed her face — the first time he'd willingly reached for her — forced her to look into his clear blue eyes, and reminded her she wasn't under water. That she was able to breathe. All they were doing was going from her universe to his. The shining doors were what they were moving towards. She could breathe the whole time. She could even walk if she wanted, it was just easier to fly through weightlessly.

For someone who pulverized anything in his path when he lost his Public Enemy #1 status, Negaduck was very good at talking someone out of a panic attack. He'd managed to get Gosalyn to the Negaverse and then took her back home later that night. He wouldn't let her travel through the portal on her own for weeks, convinced it would trigger another attack, but Gosalyn had slowly learned to trust the portal and was soon able to travel between universes effortlessly.

Climbing through her universe's door, she inhaled deeply before walking through, reminding herself to move slowly and with as little noise as possible. She didn't know where her father was. He'd left with Launchpad after hearing about a break in at the jewelry store off of 5th and Main earlier that night, but Darkwing and Launchpad could have already saved the jewels from getting burgled by now. They could be anywhere in St. Canard. She really should invest in some sort of tracking system so she wouldn't have to rely on a hope and prayer every time she climbed back into her world.

Okay. Game plan: return to Darkwing Tower. It was an easy enough location to come and go from freely without her father asking too many questions. The jewelry store that was robbed was in the heart of town, the main roads and more populated areas the best way to get there. She should be able to jump out of the cake, sneak out of the bakery, then go the back way to Audubon Bay, taking the quieter streets to the Bridge, all without being seen.

No fuss, no muss.

Except that all got blown to hell as she popped out of the cake to find her father and Launchpad standing there, waiting for her.

Launchpad gave her a weak smile, glancing at Darkwing who looked absolutely furious, his brow furrowed, his eyes reduced to slits. His arms were crossed, his hands fisting the material of his costume, as he eyed Gosalyn.

Well, then. Better think of something.

"Would this be a bad time to tell you that I've been planning your birthday party?" Gosalyn asked, the explanation spilling out of her beak faster than her brain could keep up.

"Explain to me, young lady, why you're coming out of the Negaverse at this time of night."

"The Negaverse?" Gosalyn asked, her voice just a little too high. "I was seeing which of these cakes would be best to jump out of. You know, for your birthday. That I've been planning. And would explain all my disappearances."

Darkwing tapped his webbed foot on the ground and glared up at her. Gosalyn sighed, swinging her legs out of the cake and sliding down to the floor.

"You mentioned you hadn't seen Negaduck in awhile. I found the portal to the Negaverse a few months ago and I thought I'd go see what he was up to." Wow. That was… A decent explanation.

"Really?" Darkwing asked, giving her that look that said he didn't believe a word of what she was saying.

"Really," Gosalyn returned. Her story was a good one; she was sticking to it.

"I think you should listen to her, DW," Launchpad said, glancing at Gosalyn before looking to his best friend. "Gosalyn wouldn't…"

But Gosalyn would. And had. Launchpad knew it.

He had suspected her far longer than her father — the pilot was amazingly perceptive — and he'd come right out and asked her if she'd been visiting the Negaverse. It had taken Gosalyn a moment to recover, but she'd come clean.

Mostly clean.

She'd confessed to helping Negaduck build up his criminal empire, but only because he was giving her unlimited access to his schedule of villainous activity in St. Canard. Launchpad had been disappointed, which was worse than him yelling, but he'd only asked her three questions:

"Are you safe?"

"Will you eventually tell DW?"

"Do you need any help?"

And he'd kept her secret, believing that she needed to be the one to tell Darkwing the truth. But Launchpad grew uneasy the longer she kept it from her father. He still helped her, though, despite his conflicted conscious. He'd go out and buy her ibuprofen, heat pads, wrist braces, or anything she needed after a Negaverse caper. Every time, he'd suggest she tell Darkwing and every time she'd promise she would.

Eventually.

Well. It seemed now was the eventually she'd been talking about.

"Oh, Gosalyn wouldn't, would she?" Darkwing said, glaring at Launchpad before turning back to his daughter. "I want the truth, young lady. What have you been doing in the Negaverse?"

Gosalyn looked to Launchpad, who nodded and smiled at her, then to her father who was glowering under his violet fedora. Should she tell him? Just get it all out in the open? It would make things a lot easier.

And a whole lot more complicated.

She'd played this game before. Had told her father the plan that she'd concocted with Negaduck in Duckburg. Confessed every detail of their first heist together, even going so far as to admit that she had become partners with Negaduck just to take him down later. Which hadn't been apart of her plan at all. But it sounded good and helped to add some weight to her story.

Unfortunately, Negaduck had overheard Gosalyn's confession.

It had not gone well.

Negaduck had threatened her within an inch of her life and then disappeared for weeks.

But he had moved past it. He usually held a grudge, enacting his revenge after carefully planning out how he was going to make someone suffer. The fact that he'd actually decided to move on from what Gosalyn had done so that they could have a working relationship had been enough to make Gosalyn swear to never betray him again.

His trust was fragile and not given away easily.

And as much as she loved her father, she also loved Negaduck.

Inhaling deeply, Gosalyn let her breath out with, "Exactly what I told you, Dad. Trying to keep tabs on Negaduck."

Darkwing didn't rant. He didn't demand to be told the real truth. He didn't roll his eyes or walk away or shake his head.

He just deflated. Closed his eyes as his shoulders slumped and he uncrossed his arms, his hands dangling at his sides. The defeated stance, and the utter disappointment that shone from his eyes when he opened them again, nearly caused Gosalyn to confess everything right then and there.

But she held herself back.

She'd gotten better at seeing how things played out before she made her move, carefully calculating risks and trying to get everything to play out in her favor. She'd also gotten better at lying. At separating her feelings from a case.

She blamed Negaduck for that.

She also blamed him for teaching her different combat techniques. Showing her different shooting tips depending on the weapon she had at her disposal. Demonstrating how to take down anyone with a few skilled moves in hand-to-hand combat.

He'd taught her as much good as he had bad.

But Negaduck wasn't her father. And nothing Negaduck had taught her could take away the tightness in her chest as she watched Darkwing's downfall weigh on him.

"Dad—"

He held up a hand to silence her. "If you want me to think you've been running around looking for Negaduck instead of running alongside him, then fine. I just…" he sighed. "I don't know when you stopped trusting me, Gos. I'm not upset that you've been hanging out with Negaduck—"

"Really?" Gosalyn interrupted, cocking an eyebrow at him.

"Okay, yes, I am upset about that, but I'm more upset that you lied about it. Like you were afraid that I couldn't handle it."

"But you couldn't, Dad. How was I supposed to tell you anything about this… weird partnership without you freaking out?"

"I would have adjusted."

Gosalyn loosed a tight laugh. "Now who's lying?"

Darkwing shook his head, the movements slow as he brought up a hand to scrub his face. And his look of defeat just broke Gosalyn's heart.

"Dad, I'm sorry—"

Darkwing shook his head. "No, just. Don't. We're going home." He turned to walk out of the bakery, then seemed to think better of it, looking back at her and saying, "You should stop by the St. Canard police station tomorrow."

Gosalyn bit back her sarcastic remark of, "Why, so I can turn myself in?" Knowing now was really not the time for quips, she just stuck with the, "Why?"

"Negaduck was arrested a few days ago."

"What?!" Gosalyn asked, her own posture falling. Arrested? There was no way…

"Only a few people know. They've wanted to keep it out of the media so his henchmen wouldn't be alerted because they have plans to capture everyone in the Negaverse."

Gosalyn had a million questions — mostly centered around who "they" were — but she swallowed her concern for Negaduck and buried her sarcasm. Because underneath his disappointment, Darkwing still loved her. Loved her enough to tell her that her friend, his arch-iest of arch nemeses, had been arrested so she could help him.

She nodded slowly. "Okay. Yeah, sure. I'll-I'll go."

The silence surrounded them for a few moments, broken by Darkwing walking out of the bakery. Gosalyn and Launchpad followed, Launchpad patting her on the back reassuringly. They found Darkwing standing by the Thunderquack, waiting for them.

"Can we please go home?" he asked. Wearily. Like he had nothing left to give.

Gosalyn climbed into the Thunderquack without a word, Darkwing and Launchpad not far behind. They took off for Darkwing Tower, Darkwing shedding his mask and fedora on the ride home.

Gosalyn broke the silence by saying, "I really am sorry, Dad."

"You probably are, Gos. And so am I."