Chapter Two: Lacrymosa

"She ran away?" the triplets said in unison and then scowled at each other.

"Man, I thought we stopped doing that," Louie complained.

"It wasn't my idea," Dewey grumped.

"Never mind that," Huey said, although he looked irritated at having been caught speaking in chorus with his brothers. They were seated in Webby's room and on her bed in a semicircle with her at their head. Louie was on her immediate right, Dewey on her left, and Huey opposite her. Louie kept seeing Webby stabbing that the bulldog and took her hand to keep his mind off it. It was the same hand that had stabbed the guy, but he wasn't focusing on that. It was shaking in his and he was irritated, not only because of their speaking at once, but that Lena had left Webby high and dry. If she'd known what she had and she'd left her anyway...it wasn't forgivable.

"You have any idea where she might've gone?" Huey asked and Webby shook her head.

That was another thing. Webby was barely speaking again. This wasn't like her at all. He hated that Lena had, indirectly, done this to her. This wasn't their Webby.His Webby. His hand tightened on hers, painfully so, and she gave him a warning look.

"If she wants to disappear, why not let her?" Louie said and Webby glowered. "She's been nothing but trouble."

"She almost sacrificed herself for Webby when they were fighting Magica-she told her what Magica's weakness was and helped us take her down," Huey reminded Louie. Louie scoffed.

"Wouldn't have needed to do that if she hadn't shoved herself into our lives anyway," he rejoined.

Dewey looked from one brother to the other. Louie stood up, still clasping Webby's hand. Righteous fury flooded him and he looked down at her. He didn't understand how, after doing all that damage, Lena thought she had the right to walk away and keep hurting Webby. Like she was somehow absolved of guilt by abandoning her.

"This isn't getting us anywhere," Huey said, still unruffled. Louie simmered, hating that his older brother was undaunted. He'd been so frustrated over the last few weeks between the nightmares, worry over Webby, and this whole situation. How the hell had Huey kept it together? And this had all come on the heels of the fight in the Sunchaser, not to mention the showdown with Magica. Louie had had it up to here with this bullshit.

"You're acting like you're the only one who's had nightmares and no sleep," Dewey interjected, glaring at Louie. "We've all been suffering."

"And we wouldn't have been if Lena had kept her nose out of our business," Louie countered.

He noticed that Webby hadn't spoken. She hadn't contradicted them or responded in any manner, other than to glare at him. He rounded on her.

"How can you sit there and say nothing?" he snapped. "I thought you loved her. Or at least liked her. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you've realized that she's no good and that you don't want her around either."

"Leave her alone," Dewey growled, turning around so that he was facing Louie instead of Webby.

"I don't think that's how she feels," Huey argued.

"I don't know how she really feels because ever since her grandmother died, she's been like a shell!" Louie growled. "Sometimes you can poke her into responding and sometimes, like now, she stares at nothing and doesn't speak!"

Webby pushed herself off the bed and Louie grabbed her wrist.

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

"I'm going to talk to Scrooge," she shot back. "It's better than listening to you three argue about how I feel, like I'm not even in the room."

"You could've said something…" Louie said, feeling like he'd been hit on the head with a sledgehammer.

"Did you even care or are you determined to hate Lena so much that my opinions don't matter unless they validate your own?" she rejoined. "Let go of me, Louie."

"I'm saying that maybe you're not being level-headed about this stuff," Louie argued.

"I know you're upset, but Lena didn't do any of this," Webby said and stiffened her lower beak. "She wouldn't have wanted any of this for me and she left because she was afraid she'd keep hurting me."

"And that's what she did when she bailed," Louie countered.

"You don't need her," Dewey added. "You have us."

Webby ground her beak and Louie wasn't sure whether she was about to cry or punch one of them in the face. The odds were about 50/50, although she'd never intentionally struck them before, not to hurt them. They'd never raised the issue of Lena before and Louie wondered if this was why. He wondered whether it might be too late to take it down a notch; they'd been intimidated by her before. Now that they'd seen her kill someone, though, that was entirely different.

"You're doing this because you care about me," she said after a pregnant pause, in which Louie steeled himself to get smacked. "And I appreciate that. Really. But this isn't up for discussion."

"How do you know she even wants to be found?" Dewey said and Webby's shoulders sank.

"She doesn't," she said. "And unlike last time, she won't come back. It was bad enough when she blamed herself for Granny's death. This is worse."

Holding her chin up, her body trembling, she pushed her way past them and out the door. Her shoulders were shaking and Louie and Dewey hurried to her side with Huey right behind them. Louie's stomach sank. Had he made matters worse for her? He'd only been trying to protect her. If Lena was really as bad as he thought, then she shouldn't be near Webby. But Webby didn't agree. And Webby was entitled to make her own decisions.

No matter how poorly they'd turned out lately.

Was it so bad that he wanted to protect her, even though he knew that she could defend herself? That he just wanted her for himself, not something he had to share with someone else? If Lena had left, then she'd hurt Webby, yes, but she'd also left an opening. And Louie was nothing if not an opportunist.

Huey gave him a look like he knew exactly what his youngest brother was thinking and disapproved. Louie shrugged. He could disapprove all he liked. That wouldn't stop him. Louie took Webby's hand and Webby didn't stop him. True, she might not have noticed-she was getting a little spacey-but he preferred to think it was because she wanted him to. It shook in his and he remembered how strong she'd been, to punch a hole through the guy's sternum.

"You know, I think your grandmother would've been proud of you," Louie said. "Not for the whole running away part, but for beating off an attacker and sending all of them scurrying."

"Really?" Webby said and her trembling lessened.

"You can be pretty intense when you want to be," Dewey agreed. "Webby intense, not normal person intense. It's a whole other category."

Webby blushed. "Thanks, guys."

Her expression turned serious again. "Where would someone go if they didn't want to be found?"

"Cape Suzette?" Dewey suggested and ignored the dirty looks his brothers gave him. "What? Just saying. It's either that or Saint Canard."

"Scrooge isn't going to let us go," Huey said. "It's too dangerous. Way too much crime and lawlessness. There's a reason that Darkwing Duck was set there."

"Then I bet that's where Lena went," Webby mused and the boys groaned.

"You can't go there by yourself," Huey objected.

Not after last time was the unspoken addition to that sentence.

"I never said I was going to," she said and smiled impishly. While it was heartening to see her smile like that, it was also worrying. It meant she was plotting, and he had a feeling he wasn't going to like the outcome. He already wasn't pleased at the idea of chasing after Lena in a random town they'd never been to after Webby had been beset by thugs twice in Duckberg, which was supposed to be safe.

"Who knows the streets of Saint Canard better than Launchpad McQuack?" she asked. "He's probably memorized every single episode of Darkwing Duck."

"Okay, you cannot rope Launchpad into this," Louie objected. "He's a fanboy. He's not reliable. And you know he'll crash."

"I'm a fangirl," she countered, daring them to argue. After their previous bickering, Louie was afraid to raise the point.

"I know everything I could find out about Scrooge McDuck and the Duck family," she continued. "And everything I could learn from Agent 22 about self-defense and fighting. If you have knowledge, you should use it."

"There's a difference between using knowledge and being suicidal," Dewey argued. Braver duck than Louie was. "What if you end up stranded somewhere in Saint Canard and even Launchpad doesn't know where you are?"

"GPS," she said simply.

"What if your phone gets stolen?" Dewey shot back.

"It won't," she said, smug. "You're just coming up with excuses to shoot me down now."

"Maybe we are, but it's dangerous," Huey said.

"Everything lately has been dangerous," she retorted. "I'm sick of sitting around the manor. It's not safe either, in case you haven't noticed. Magica walked right up and abducted the four of us. I'd rather be unsafe and somewhere doing something productive than sitting around here twiddling my thumbs."

The boys exchanged uneasy glances. She had a valid point. The manor hadn't proven especially defensible lately. It felt like any of their enemies could waltz right in and wreak havoc. True, Magica was a special case, since no one had any defense against magic, nothing reliable as far as Louie knew. But who knew what was going to be thrown at them next?

Webby smiled. "You see what I mean, then."

"If I say yes, will you give up on it and let Scrooge look for her?" Huey said.

Webby scowled. "No. He didn't find the Bloodhound Gang and he's not going to find Lena, not by himself."

"Pretty sure Magica was hiding them, though," Dewey commented. "And I don't think Lena's proficient enough in magic to hide herself."

"Then you agree with me," she said, triumphant.

"Wait, wait, wait," Louie said, holding up his free hand. "We did not say that. And Scrooge is not going to agree to this."

"There are other ways to get around without telling him," she said. Oh, no, Louie did not like where this was going. And he had the bad feeling he and his brothers were about to be roped into it, hook, line, and sinker.

Lena was throwing her things into a bag and hating herself. She'd tied Webby's ribbon around her wrist, like a sad mockery of the friendship bracelet. It rested there malevolently, as if condemning her for fleeing and then for permitting all of those atrocities to befall her so-called best friend. She deserved this, all the pain and anguish that came from breaking ties with Webby. If she could take Webby's trauma onto herself, she would. Magica's nightmarish taunts from the last two weeks echoed on repeat in her head and she sank to her knees.

What she wanted to do was sleep until it stopped hurting. It was a childish reaction. How dare she think she could escape what she'd done. How dare she think she had the right. Lena's hands trembled on her diary. For years, all she'd done was run. She hadn't stopped in Duckberg because she had wanted to. How different things might have been had she kept running.

It was too difficult to pack now. She collapsed back onto her cot and scrubbed at her eyes. If she wasn't careful, she'd get Webby's ribbon wet. Curling into a ball, she hugged her knees. Her imagination and Magica's fueled nightmares showed her what had happened to Webby because of her. Lena had let it happen. Everyone Lena ever touched ended up in worse shape because the de Spell family was cursed, and Lena was just the latest byproduct.

Maybe she'd be all right if she slept for a little while. When she woke up, she'd leave Duckberg. She ought to know better than to concede to the fatigue, but her limbs were leaden. Too much had happened in a month. She choked back sobs and hated that she might end up crying herself to sleep. Whenever she did, she woke up with a headache. It'd happened enough times to know.

She felt herself drifting and ignored the hand on her shoulder. It might be her aunt come to torment her again. If that was the case, she wanted no part of it. No one else knew she was down here, did they?

Go away, Aunt Magica…

Someone scooped her up, much gentler than anything Aunt Magica would've ever done, and Lena fought back to the surface. She was drained, still crying softly, and it almost felt like too much work to return to consciousness. Besides, this might be a dream. No one was coming for her. No one cared for her besides Webby and she'd already made her position with Webby clear.

She knew the boys hated her and wouldn't have sent someone after her. That left Scrooge and she doubted Scrooge cared enough to intervene. No, this was her long-lost father, bringing her back to love finally. Lena relaxed, her tears abating, and surrendered to sleep entirely.

"I told Webby I'd find her," Scrooge said quietly, wary of waking Lena. He buckled her in and winced when she cried in her sleep. The sobs struck him like blows to the heart.

"You'll be okay, lass," he reassured Lena, who couldn't hear him anyway. Launchpad climbed into the pilot's seat and looked back at her.

"You sure she won't try to flee again once we bring her back to the manor?" he asked, frowning.

"Aye," he said. "Because I'm going to have a good long talk with her first."

She was just a child. She was so young to have endured all that darkness and misery. Looking at her, Scrooge felt every year of his age. He also felt oddly fond of her; if Webby thought she was family, then who was Scrooge to argue with that? Lena curled into a tighter ball on the seat and buried her face in her knees to cry quietly. Scrooge noticed Webby's ribbon tied around her right wrist.

His eyes flashed warningly at Launchpad. "Try not to crash this time. The lass deserves to sleep for once."

"Can do, Mr. McDee," he replied, and Scrooge stifled a sigh. Given Launchpad's track record, he wasn't putting too much stock in that promise.

Lena awoke in a strange room and tensed, reaching for the magic she used to have in spades. Nothing happened, only the equivalent of trickles between her fingers. Where was she? The surroundings were sumptuous, which meant it had to be McDuck Manor. But how? She'd fallen asleep in the underground and yet, here she was, and her belongings were beside her on a side table.

She was in a four-poster bed and when she thrust the curtains aside, she saw a full-length mirror, a chest of drawers, a small bookshelf, and, lying at the end of her bed, Webby. Webby closed the book she'd been reading, and Lena's guilt wrenched at her. The girl's eyes were red-rimmed like she'd been crying.

"Hi," Lena said in a tight voice.

"Hi," Webby said. Her lips twitched like she was fighting a small smile. "Looks like Uncle Scrooge is one for one now. He didn't find the Bloodhound Gang or Magica before, but he found you."

"I wasn't trying very hard to hide," she said with a shrug. "I kinda fell asleep in my hideout."

Webby looked pointedly at Lena's items in a backpack beside her. "Are you going to stay?"

Lena tensed. She hadn't wanted to. This was the opposite of what she'd wanted. She'd thought by extricating herself from Webby's life, things would be less complicated for Webby. Or had she tried to run from what she'd done? Webby clearly cared enough about her that she'd sent someone after her. Lena couldn't bring herself to meet the younger girl's eyes.

"You don't have to," she reassured her, but Lena heard the torment in Webby's voice. "You can go. I'll tell Uncle Scrooge and the triplets to let you go."

"I was trying to protect you," Lena said, feeling like the jagged edges that comprised her were rubbing together and lacerating her within. "All of this stuff happened because of me."

"No, it happened because of Magica," Webby corrected.

"And I was just her pawn?" Lena said scathingly and regretted it when she saw, out of the corner of her eye, Webby flinch. Fuck.

"You didn't have a choice," Webby countered. "You didn't want to hurt me. And everything that happened afterward wasn't your fault either."

"A real friend wouldn't have led her friend into danger," Lena said.

"Is that all we are?" Webby asked and the serrated edges inside Lena grated further, cutting her up inside until she felt like pulped, raw meat.

"Can you at least look at me, Lena?" she whispered.

When Lena didn't speak, Webby added, "Uncle Scrooge said you were crying in your sleep."

Lena stared at the bedspread. She still couldn't bring herself to look at her. She didn't deserve this. Why was Webby so devoted to her? She'd done nothing to deserve it.

They were silent, and Lena balled her fists beneath the sheets. She needed to say something, before Webby left and thought the worst of her. But wouldn't that have been for the best? Lena had thought Webby would have been better off without her, yet she'd tracked her down anyway.

She wouldn't know if she cried in her sleep. She'd slept beside Webby before, but the younger girl had awoken later, and Lena had snuck away before she'd roused. What was wrong with her? Why was she sabotaging the only good thing in her life? Because of Magica? Or because she hated herself?

"Lena."

Webby was no longer pleading, but ordering. "Lena. Look at me."

Lena sat, frozen, for a minute before all of her fears crashed upon her. Webby would demand she leave and never return. Webby actually hated her and was grilling her before repudiating her. Magica was orchestrating this whole event for her private amusement and never intended to let Lena have any happiness, because Lena didn't deserve it. Because Lena was a monster. She was a pawn in Magica's ploys and everything she touched turned to ash.

Lena's lower beak quivered, and she threw herself at Webby. She needed to reassure herself that the other girl was real and not abandoning her, not like everyone else who claimed to care for her. Webby, startled, hugged her back and kissed her on the crown of the head and then thumbed away her tears.

"Hey," Webby said gently. "Hey. I'm not upset with you. I never blamed you for what happened to Granny and I don't blame you for what fell out with the Bloodhound Gang and Magica. Hey. It's okay. Breathe, Lena."

Lena hugged her tightly, so tightly she felt sure that she'd protest. She did no such thing.

"Hey…" Webby soothed. "If you only want to be friends…"

Lena shook her head. Her throat had constricted too far for speech. She trembled in Webby's arms and Webby rested her chin on her head.

"I'm not going anywhere," she promised. "And neither are you, right?"

Lena shook her head again and let all of the anguish she'd been holding in for years flood out of her. She was going to get Webby drenched again, this time in tears instead of blood, and she couldn't bring herself to stop. It was like a faucet with a broken knob. No matter what she tried, she couldn't hold it in any longer.

When she'd cried herself hoarse and dry, Webby chuckled weakly.

"I'm going to have to change again," she whispered, and Lena's lips twitched toward a weak smile too.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left," Lena whispered back.

"You're safe here," Webby promised. "You're part of the family now. No one gets left behind or forgotten."

"Isn't that a quote from a movie?" Lena said, this time mustering a tiny smile.

"Of course, it is," Webby said, smiling back. "Doesn't mean it isn't true."