Big, fat tears rolled down Webby's cheeks as she hid huddled in the hedges of the Manor garden. She'd really messed up this time.

It was just that everything was happening so much right now. The boys were so close to finding out what had had happened to their mom, so things were super overwhelming on that front. And then their emotions had been so all over the place lately. Huey was burying himself in Junior Woodchucks stuff, so he was rarely home, and when he was home, he was still buried in Junior Woodchucks Stuff. Dewey was altering between diving into research on his mother and "YOLOing it up," as he put it. And Louie kept disappearing all day to nobody knew where and Webby was pretty sure he had a new phone but was even more sure that either of his uncles hadn't gotten it for him. Webby just wanted to spend some time with them, maybe play a game of foam-dart tag. But every time she tried to hang out with them, they snapped at her. The only time she managed to do anything with them was when Dewey let her help him research.

Granny said to give them some space and that learning all this stuff about their mother was bound to bring up all kinds of emotions. But Webby had just found out about what had happened to her own parents, so she had all sorts of emotions herself, and she just wanted to talk to someone about them, or at least do something fun so she could forget about them for a while, but the boys were so busy wrapped up in their own stuff that she wasn't even sure they knew what she'd just learned.

And so she'd completely ruined their friendship by snapping at them.

Webby closed her eyes, her words echoing in her head.

'Your mother isn't the only thing that matters.'

'Maybe you should remember the other things in your life for once.'

'If no one's told you about your mother by now, maybe it's better if you don't know what happened to her.'

And now...now she'd lost the only friends she'd ever had.

Webby'd known it wouldn't last. Either the nephews would think she was weird or a tag along, or Mr. McDuck would start fighting with Mr. Duck again and they'd move back out. But she didn't think she'd actively destroy the only friendships she'd ever had.

Why did everything have to happen so much?

Suddenly, she started hearing voices calling in the distance.

"Webby!"

"Are you sure she's out here?"

"Of course I'm sure. I heard her run out of the house."

"That doesn't mean she's here; she might have left the yard completely."

"No way. She never left the Manor until we showed up. She's got to know all the best hiding places around here."

Webby froze. The nephews were looking for her. They probably wanted to yell at her and formally dissolve their friendship; she hadn't really given them the chance to do that before. Webby already knew there was no way they were friends anymore. She really didn't need them to tell her that.

Or maybe they'd get bored looking for her and give up and return to the house. That kind of sounded like a better idea, because then she wouldn't have to face them any time soon (and Webby was the king of making her way around the Manor without running into anybody, so she was sure she could avoid them for a while), but at the same time that would mean that they didn't even care about her enough to talk to her and make sure she was ok and hadn't run all the way into town, and somehow that was even worse.

Or maybe they wanted to apologize.

Nah.

"Webby!"

"We know you're out here!"

"I'm not convinced."

"Sh!"

Webby held her breath as the voices grew louder and footsteps came closer to her hiding place.

"Webby, please come out! We don't have to talk if you're not ready to, but we just want to make sure you're ok!"

Tears sprung to Webby's eyes. Huey, Dewey, and Louie did care about her after all. Or maybe they just wanted to cover their own butts to make sure she didn't turn up dead because they hated her too much to make sure she hadn't been kidnapped or run into traffic. Or maybe they just had the basic decency to not want her dead or hurt but to still want her completely out of their lives.

"Yeah, come on, Webby. We're kind of getting worried."

If Webby stayed in her hiding place, she'd just be prolonging the inevitable. Might as well get this over with.

Webby crawled out of her spot in the hedges and stood up, her hands shaking as she brushed some stray leaves and twigs off of her clothes.

"Webby!"

"Are you ok?"

"I told youshe was out here."

"Yeah, I'm fine," Webby said, her voice shaking, trying to find a good place to look that wasn't any of the nephews. "I guess I'll just...head back inside."

"Wait!" Dewey said, grabbing her by the wrist.

Webby stopped, and he took his hand away, taking a step back to give her space.

"We don't have to talk about this right now if you don't want to, but we do want to say we're sorry."

Huey and even Louie nodded in agreement.

"We haven't been-we haven't been being very good friends lately, and we're going to try to do better," Huey said.

"As long as that's ok with you," Dewey added.

Webby looked at each nephew, trying to figure out whether or not they were being serious.

"Really?" she said. "You still want to be my friends?"

"Sure," said Louie with a shrug. "But we still have to talk about what happened earlier, because that definitely crossed a line."

"And so was the way we treated you," Dewey said.

Webby rubbed the back of her head. "Yeah, I'm really sorry about that," she said.

"Hey, you should hear some of the stuff Louie's said when he was angry," Dewey said.

"It's not like you're any better!" Louie retorted, giving his brother a playful shove.

"We can talk about it tomorrow, after we've all had the chance to calm down and think about what happened," Huey said. "Now, let's get back to the Manor before Uncle Donald discovers we're gone."

They began to walk back to the mansion in a comfortable silence. Webby sniffled back a few tears-happy tears-that, if the boys noticed, they didn't say anything about.

It looked like she hadn't lost her friends after all.