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Scrooge rolled over in bed, pulling his pillow over his head with a grumble. His whole bedroom was far too bright and painful. It wasn't supposed to be this bright, was it? He squinted his eyes shut tighter, trying to block out the pounding headache.
Bright?
Wait a minute.
Slowly, gingerly, he pulled back his blankets, squinting against the sunlight. Scrooge fumbled for the pocket watch in his beside table. It was two minutes after ten in the morning. His eyes widened. He usually woke up with the sun, five-thirty in the summer and six o 'clock in the winter. His routine never changed. Never. Which is why he'd scheduled important transactions at seven o'clock this morning. His competitors would be tired and annoyed and he would be refreshed and awake.
But the impossible had happened- he was Scrooge McDuck and he was late. He scrambled for the edge of the bed, scrabbling for his glasses, the world inconveniently blurred. The room darkened as he moved too fast and he froze, waiting for the spots to disappear and the sudden motion sickness to settle. His breath rasped uncomfortably against his throat.
The door opened, startling him, and Scrooge fell off of the bed with an awkward thump, glasses in his hand. Mrs. Beakley sighed, "Mr. McDuck, did you forget about what happened last night?"
A weak groan from the other side of the bed.
Mrs. Beakley grumbled under her breath about stubborn ducks as she helped her employer back onto his bed.
Scrooge crossed his arms sullenly, voice hoarse as she sat him down, "I don't remember what happened last night, thank you very much."
Mrs. Beakley raised an eyebrow, "You really don't? Mr. McDuck, you have Aspergillosis, we had to go see a doctor."
Scrooge coughed, "What? Me? I'm Scrooge McDuck I don't need some quack Doctor! Because I don't get sic-" he began coughing again. Mrs. Beakley raised an unimpressed eyebrow as she set the tray she'd been holding down.
The fit stopped and he grumbled sullenly as he sunk gratefully back into his pillows, "I'm not sick."
She picked up a needle full of a clear liquid, "I'm afraid you are, Mr. McDuck."
He whined, "But Aspergillosis is an old duck disease."
She sighed, "Not necessarily... And besides, look at it this way, you wouldn't have gotten it if you hadn't been tramping around for two weeks, all day, in moldy unsafe environments that would adversely affect your respiratory system."
Scrooge started, "What about the boys! Did the boys get sick? Are they okay?"
Mrs. Beakley shushed him, "The boys are just fine. Apparently, they weren't there as long as you were, because according to them you'd been captured by a tribe of angry Amazonians?"
Scrooge grumbled, "Yes, well, it wasn't my fault that they didn't mark the gold properly. It was just a building made of it! In the middle of nowhere! How was I supposed to know it was theirs? And that they'd throw me in a moldy dungeon with rotting straw?"
Mrs. Beakley snorted, "You're lucky you didn't catch any other unsavory diseases while you were there."
Scrooge glowered, "What about my meeting?"
"I canceled it on the grounds that you were in the hospital, Mr. McDuck. The board was very understanding."
Scrooge complained petulantly, "It was important!"
She jabbed back, "And so is your continued well-being."
"Oh, just give me my shot."
After he'd gotten the shots and antibiotics prescribed by the doctor, and after he'd eaten every drop of his soup under Mrs. Beakley's watchful eye, she let him with the last order of, "Go to sleep, Mr. McDuck, you'll need it."
Mrs. Beakley closed the door and sighed, a small amused quirk of her mouth upwards, "He's as bad as the children."
Scrooge slept.
Unfortunately, not for very long.
Webby poked her head in the door curiously just a few hours later, listening carefully to the ugly hoarseness in Scrooge's breathing and the labored up and down movements while he slept.
Webby tiptoed over to the bed, worry evident in her unusually quiet footsteps. She clambered onto the soft sheets and watched him sleep. Webby pulled a small lookalike doll out of her pack and hesitantly placed it on his bedside table.
She whispered to the sleeping trazillionaire, "Mr. McDuck, see that's my Webby doll. My Grammy made it for me when I was way younger." She gnawed on her lower lip, "I don't use it as much anymore, but I just thought..." Her cheeks were burning with embarrassment even though no one was there to see, "I just thought she could watch over you while you're sick because she always made me feel better when I was younger."
Scrooge muttered something and turned over in his sleep. Webby sighed, and slid off of the bed, sneaking out of the room as silently as she'd come in.
However, the floorboard creaked under her foot just as she reached for the doorknob and Scrooge jolted upwards with alarm, shouting wildly against an imaginary foe, "You better not come back here Soapy or I'll tan your hide so badly you'll be wishing you'd never come to Dawson-!"
He blinked bewilderedly at Webby's gobsmacked face and his bedroom. He descended into a coughing fit and Webby hurried back over, not knowing what to do.
Eventually it stopped, his hacking turning into small hiccups and then nothing. Webby asked cautiously, "Are you alright, Mr. McDuck?"
Scrooge scoffed, "Alright? Of course I'm alright. Nothing can keep me down, lassie! I'm Scrooge McDuck!"
She looked skeptically at him as he wheezed tiredly.
Scrooge noticed the look and asked grumpily, "What are you doing here anyway? Aren't you supposed to be hanging around making sure the boys don't do something stupid?"
Webby shrugged, feeling very silly, "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"Ah, I'm fine. Nothing can keep these old bones down for long."
Webby still seemed unsure and Scrooge, chalking up his strange uncharacteristically affectionate behavior to delusional sickness, beckoned her over, "Well c'mon then, lass. I'm not contagious."
Webby eagerly climbed onto the bed, snuggling into his side. Scrooge coughed, "Well now, would you like to hear a story, Webbigail?"
"Won't that hurt your voice?"
Scrooge huffed with indignation, "Of course not. Would I be offering if I thought it would hurt? Now, I'll tell any story you ask for, as long as it isn't sad."
Webby mused, "What about that time you supposedly beat Jesse James? And the Dalton boys, Mr. McDuck?"
Scrooge frowned, and tossed out quickly, "Just call me, Uncle Scrooge, Webby." He hurried on, trying to move beyond the mushy moment and her utterly delighted face, "That's actually two different stories, but I can tell them both."
Webby grinned and settled in as Scrooge began, "Well, the time I met Jesse James was awhile back and ya see I didn't really know who he was-"
Mrs. Beakley knocked on Scrooge's door worriedly. She'd been looking for Webby everywhere and now she had to look here. If Webby had bothered Scrooge while he was supposed to be resting, she would have to have a stern word with the girl.
She opened the door as silently as possible, "Webbigail?"
She froze.
Scrooge and Webby were both snoring contentedly, huddled together in the bed. Mrs. Beakley smiled slowly, and then she very quietly closed the door.
She didn't need Webby right now, it could wait.
The door shut with a soft click.