Chapter Text
FATES:
Who are you?
Where do you think you’re going?
Who are you?
Why are you all alone?
Who do you-
-Think you are?
Who are you-
-To think that you can walk a road that no one ever walked before?
Day 1
Gandra groaned as she opened her eyes. She was lying on the ground, the lights around her too bright, her head pounding, her upper arm aching from where an Egghead had jabbed her with a needle, she had no idea where she was.
And she was going to throw up.
Gandra rolled on her side and emptied the contents of her stomach on the white floor, coughing and gagging and retching, tears leaking out of her eyes. Finally, though, she fell back onto her back, groaning again and squeezing her eyes shut against the bright lights, gasping for oxygen. Where the hell was she? The last thing she remembered was being dragged out of the server room by Eggheads, and the prick of the needle, and then…
Nothing.
“Don’t feel too bad, my dear. Everyone vomits when they first come-to. Don’t know what Black Heron put in that nasty little concoction of hers, but it impacts everyone’s gastrointestinal tracts. Don’t worry about the mess, either. They’ll send in a little robot friend to clean up. I can’t tell if there’s one per cell or one total, but I’ve named mine George.”
Gandra’s eyes opened again at the unfamiliar voice.
“Who’s there?” She called out.
“It’s me, your neighbor!”
Gandra slowly pushed herself into a seated position, her head spinning. She instinctively put a hand on her stomach, nausea building up in her again.
There was light around her, but beyond there was darkness. She couldn’t see anything or anyone and then…
“Yoo hoo! Over here!”
Within the darkness, light clicked on. There was an old male duck in a lab coat standing in… a clear box?
“Who are you?” Gandra demanded. “And where are we?”
“Professor Ludwig von Drake, at your service, madam,” The duck said with a grand bow. “As for where we are, why, we are in the world’s best kept secret: the Library of Alexandria!”
Gandra frowned. “I thought that burnt down.”
“Ah, yes, that’s why this is the world’s best kept secret. Because everyone believes that it burned down. Now, whom do I have the pleasure of speaking to?”
Gandra hesitated. “Name’s Gandra. Gandra Dee.”
“Well, Miss Dee, let me be the first to welcome you to the Lost Library. None of those other F.O.W.L types will.”
More nausea built up in Gandra. Until… well, she didn’t know how long she’d been out cold for—long enough to get from Duckburg to… somewhere in Northern Africa—she had been one of those F.O.W.L types.
Gandra looked around her prison cell. Six walls, all made of some weird clear plastic/glass thing.
Nothing that indicated a way to get out.
She charged up her nanites and touched them to the wall of the cell.
Her back collided with the back wall, and she slumped to the floor, turning and vomiting again.
“Ooh, that was a good try, my dear,” von Drake said approvingly as she dry heaved. “Best attempt yet. Alas.”
Alas indeed.
Grimacing and groaning, Gandra shakily pushed herself to her feet, glaring at the wall. She touched it again, just with her fingertips that time. Oddly enough, Gandra didn’t feel panicked as she gently touched the wall. She was trapped by F.O.W.L, yes, but she suspected it wouldn’t be for long.
Fenton. Fenton would find her. He would come for her.
She knew it deep, deep down…
Gandra just needed to wait.
*****
Fenton checked his phone again. No response yet from Gandra. This wasn’t unusual. There were two modes when it came to their texting: responding to texts within seconds, and taking hours to send back a one- or two-word answer.
She’s fine, Fenton told himself. She’s probably just trying to keep on the down-low as she gets the server out of FOWL. No distractions. She’ll call you soon.
Fenton put his cellphone in his desk drawer and closed it up.
Day 3
Gandra dry-heaved over what barely passed for a toilet in her cell. Because F.O.W.L weren’t ‘villains’, all of her basic needs were tended to. She got what passed as food and potable water three times a day, and a rough wool blanket that made up her bed, and a specific corner of her cell that formed an even smaller, opaqued-wall cube to allude to privacy one would have in a real bathroom.
“I’m gonna…” Gandra grumbled in between panting. “Punch. Black Heron. In the throat.”
She groaned and leaned backwards, wrapping her arms around her stomach, her face screwed up. This was the third time she had woken up and immediately needed to throw up. Her stomach was not settling, despite the bland food being served to her.
How long was that stupid sedative concoction of Black Heron’s supposed to make her feel nauseous for?
Gandra crawled out of her so-called ‘bathroom’ and to her blanket, wrapping herself up in it and going back to sleep.
Not like there was anything else to do. And at least if she didn’t feel well, she could rest. And do so in peace, in the dark around her.
Gandra was almost asleep again right as the harmonica music started.
Gandra had already started a long list of things she wanted to do when she got rescued.
Kiss Fenton.
Eat a hamburger.
Make out with Fenton.
Get an ice-cream cone.
Do more than just make out with Fenton.
Punch Black Heron in the throat.
Get a motel room and lock herself in there with Fenton and not leave for a week.
All of that got pushed on down because Gandra Dee knew the first thing she wanted to do when she got out of this cell.
And that was to utterly annihilate that damn harmonica.
*****
It was the third day of silence from Gandra that fear sank its teeth into Fenton.
He sent her text after text, gif after gif, meme after meme, cat emoji after cat emoji, and all he got in response was silence.
He waited. And waited.
Nothing. Silence.
After checking the messages once again and not seeing any sign that they had been read or even delivered, Fenton sent his mother a text message.
I need you to help me perform a welfare check.
Fifteen minutes later, Fenton was standing outside of Gandra’s apartment building, waiting impatiently for his mother to show up. Rosa arrived and they stepped inside to the building manager’s office, flashed her badge, and told him their purpose there and which apartment they needed to get into. The manager was concerned, admitting it had been some time since he had last seen Gandra; he gave them the key, and up the elevator they went.
“So,” Rosa said casually as the elevator rose to Gandra’s floor, not looking at Fenton. “I presume this means that not all of your late nights were spent at the lab.”
Fenton felt his face heat, knowing his cheeks were scarlet. “Um, well, um… you see, uh…”
His mother chuckled. “It’s okay, pollito. I was your age once and very much in love, too.” She looked over at Fenton and gave him a reassuring smile. Fenton tried to return it but his stomach was in knots from worry. “I’m not going to judge you for having a little bit of private time with tu novia.”
They got to Gandra’s apartment and Rosa banged on the door, yelling, “Duckburg Police, welfare check!”
There was no answer.
Rosa pounded on the door again, repeating herself.
More silence.
Fenton couldn’t hear the knocking over the pounding of his heart in his chest as the call was repeated a third time.
Then Rosa stuck the key in the door and pushed it open.
There was silence.
Rosa stepped in first, Fenton following close behind.
There were dishes in the sink, the bed made, and a slight stuffiness to the room.
There was no sign of a struggle, but no signs of life within the apartment.
Fenton went through each of the three rooms. Gandra’s weighted blanket was folded at the end of her bed, as it always was. He remembered her breath against his cheek as she told him that the first time she had slept without it in five years was the first time he slept over.
Her toothbrush was on the counter in the bathroom, and he remembered her pointing at him with it playfully. He didn’t even remember what it was she had been teasing him about, but he remembered how bright and beautiful her eyes were, how big the smile on her face was.
A grocery list on the fridge, ingredients for a meal they were going to make together written in Gandra’s hand on the notepad.
A library book on the coffee table, a bookmark half sticking out, three quarters into the book. The bookmark Fenton had made for her with pressed flowers, a small and simple gift but one Gandra had loved.
He stood in the center of her living room, feeling suddenly hollow.
Gandra was gone.
No, she had been taken. If she had just left—left him behind—there would be so many signs that this apartment had been occupied until recently.
The hollow feeling was replaced with a bone-crushing sense of fear and dread.
Gandra was missing.
And he needed to find her. Soon. Fast. Before it was too late.
Wait for me, Gandra, Fenton thought. I’m coming.
Day 7
The harmonica music was driving her insane. She was going to kill someone. No, not someone. Her cellmate. Cell-neighbor? Whatever.
Professor Ludwig von Drake was going to die at Gandra’s hand with that harmonica shoved down his throat.
“Will you knock it off?” Gandra growled at last. “Don’t you know that harmonica music is bad for the baby?”
As she hoped, the man stopped the music.
She knew what his response would be. “What baby?” He would ask. And she would respond, “Me. I’m the baby.”
Because she had officially been locked up in this stupid place long enough that she was bored and missed memes and she had no choice but to create meme content for herself.
But instead, von Drake surprised Gandra by saying, “Oh, good. I was starting to wonder if you yourself knew. Mazel tov, my dear.”
Gandra opened her mouth to respond, only to snap her beak shut.
Then, with a slight hitch and squeak to her voice, she exclaimed “Wait, what?”
*****
Dr. Gearloose had been surprisingly supportive of Fenton’s attempts to find Gandra.
Gyro gave him time, space, access to whatever technology Fenton needed, and also offered his own assistance, taking time away from his projects.
Fenton didn’t know why Dr. Gearloose was being so particularly helpful, but he wasn’t going to complain. Nor was he going to ask. Fenton wasn’t one to look a gift-horse in the mouth.
Nor was he one to use that expression around his co-worker, the Headless Man-Horse, either…
Not that it made much difference.
It had been a week since Fenton had last had contact with Gandra, and panic and terror was fully starting to set in.
Yet, it only fueled him, motivated him to work harder. Faster.
He was going to find her.
I’m coming…
Day 11
Gandra paced her cell, going round and round in circles, as she had spent all of her waking time over the last few days, churning thoughts over and over in her head, just as her stomach churned every morning when she woke up.
I was starting to wonder if you yourself knew, von Drake had said.
Baby. Baby. Baby.
No.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Hell no.
Absolutely not.
Gandra Dee was not pregnant.
She was not. She was not. She was not.
She had been on birth control, taken that stupid pill every morning without fail.
Hadn’t she?
Obviously, she hadn’t taken it since she got to the Library. F.O.W.L didn’t exactly allow her to pack for this little trip.
Oh. Crap. There was that time she was supposed to pick up her refilled birth control prescription… and then Bradford gave her an assignment to steal something.
She got ‘stopped’ by Gizmoduck, of course, came home covered in pie. Lemon meringue.
She was so focused on getting a shower before Fenton arrived with Chinese she forgot to pick up the prescription until she got another reminder call from the pharmacy two days later.
And… that had been the night that they hadn’t used a condom. They were too eager to get at each other. But they were both clean, and she was on birth control, and…
She didn’t want gazillion-years-old Mrs. Featherson from sixth grade sex ed to be right when she had looked at all of them in the class severely and said ominously, “It only takes one time having unprotected sex…”
No. Nope. Mrs. Featherson was wrong.
And von Drake was even wronger. More wrong. Whatever, these were her own private thoughts and she could be grammatically incorrect.
And von Drake was wronger than wrong.
He was wrong.
Gandra wasn’t pregnant. Not at all.
Von Drake was just a crazy old man with a harmonica who knew nothing. Nothing. Nothing!
NOTHING!
Dizzy, Gandra stopped, resting her hand on the wall of her cell, telling herself that she was gasping for breath because she walked too fast, because there was no fresh air in this cell.
She was not hyperventilating with anxiety. No, no she was not.
And she wasn’t pregnant, either.
*****
Gizmoduck flew through the air, going fast even with the weight of the passengers on his back. Huey and Dr. Gearloose, the latter of whom clung on to the Gizmosuit for dear life and the former was looking down at his tablet.
“The signal is just up ahead!” Huey reported in.
Huey pinpointed the signal of Gandra’s cell phone to the beach. They touched ground and Huey walked around with the tablet until finally making an X in the sand.
The three stood there for a long moment, then Gizmoduck activated a shovel and began digging.
He didn’t have to go too deep; all hopes of an underground bunker vanquished as the first shovel-full revealed a water-logged cell-phone, barely with any battery life left.
“I want to know what modifications she made to this thing, because it has outlasted a Waddle phone in ideal conditions,” Dr. Gearloose muttered as he plucked the phone out of the clump of wet sand.
“Her phone must have fallen into the water, and the ocean brought it back to shore,” Huey said. “And, well, it got buried under the sand from the tides.”
Gizmoduck stood very, very still, staring at the hole in the ground, a sick feeling going through him.
How did Gandra’s phone get into the ocean?
Had she been thrown into the ocean?
Was he too late?
Was her body…
No. No, no, no. He was going to find Gandra, and she was going to be alive, damn it.
Wait for me, I’m coming…
Day 15
Gandra had started counting.
She counted again and again.
The numbers did not change.
She counted how many days she had been in this stupid box.
She counted how many days it had been since she had last passed an egg.
She counted how many days it had been since she was supposed to have passed an egg.
She counted how many days it had been since she had woken up in her apartment with sunshine streaming through the curtains, with Fenton’s arms around her, with his soft snoring in her ear, with the promise of coffee and pancakes once they were both awake and ready to crawl out of bed, with a vague wonder of where she would find the clothes that they had haphazardly thrown around the apartment the night before in their desperation to get to each other, in the heat of their passion.
All of those numbers were too big for her comfort.
*****
Fenton had started counting.
He counted again and again.
The numbers did not change.
He counted how many days it had been since the last time he had heard from Gandra.
He counted how many days it had been since he and his mother had found Gandra’s abandoned apartment, no sign of her or that she had left willingly.
He counted how many days it had been since he had finally tracked her cellphone, only to find the phone and not find her.
He counted how many days it had been since he had last seen her, had been able to touch her in the Cloud, to hold her and kiss her and love her like he couldn’t in reality, to protect her and collaborate with her and watch her eyes shine as she came up with an idea.
All of those numbers were too big for his comfort.
Day 20
Her jeans didn’t fit.
She awoke and she felt like she was being squeezed too tight around her middle. She had felt the waistband tightening for days, slowly growing more and more uncomfortable. But that morning it was unbearable. She undid the button and zipper with some effort, wincing as she did so until, finally, she felt relief when they were undone. She laid on her floor for a moment, taking in deep breaths. Resisting the urge to look down at her stomach, to put her hand on her abdomen.
She didn’t want to think about how her belly was starting to round out. About how tender her breasts were, to the point that the other night she had rolled onto her side in her sleep and that had been painful enough to wake her up. About how she still woke up every morning feeling nauseous even before she was delivered her first allotment of unappealing food.
She didn’t want to think about it.
Because if she thought about it, then it would be real.
*****
“Dr. Intern?”
“What?” Fenton snapped, not looking over his shoulder as he focused on the screen in front of him. Or tried to focus. His vision was fuzzy, words and numbers blurring. His leg was bouncing from pent up energy, from the amount of coffee he had consumed. He ignored the hunger pains in his belly. His chest felt tight, like there was a hand grasped tightly around his heart.
He had to find her.
“I need to see you. Now.” Dr. Gearloose said, not deterred by the ire in Fenton’s voice, matching Fenton tone-for-tone.
Fenton’s fingers stopped typing and he brought his hands to his face. Slapped his cheeks some, trying to wake himself up. This wasn’t good. He had to stay awake. Gandra was depending on him. He had to find her…
Fenton got to his feet and followed Dr. Gearloose to the main part of the lab.
He was caught off guard by the amount of people that awaited in the lab.
There was his mother, and Huey, and Launchpad, and Webby, and Dewey, and Louie, and Mr. McDuck…
“What’s going on?” Fenton asked. Had he missed an alarm? Had he failed to report as Gizmoduck to some crime in progress?
They were all staring at him, all looking at him with concern. Why were they concerned about him? He was fine. He was safe. Gandra wasn’t. He had to find her…
“Fenton,” Huey said. “When was the last time you slept?”
“I don’t know,” Fenton responded. “Why?”
“Pollito,” Rosa sighed, coming over and gently cupping his face. “Sweetheart, we’re worried about you.”
“Why?” Fenton asked again. He was fine. He was safe. Gandra…
He had to find her.
“Uh, because you look like a zombie?” Dewey said.
“Yeah, buddy, you don’t look too hot,” Launchpad agreed.
Mr. McDuck sighed and said, “Lad, we understand you’re worried about your girlfriend, and we will do all that we can to help you find her. But ye need to take care of yourself, too.”
“Gandra won’t be happy if we rescue her at the expense of losing you,” Webby said with a nod.
Fenton shook his head. “No. No. I’ve got to find her… Who knows what F.O.W.L is doing to her?”
Mr. McDuck sighed. He looked over at the three kids, who suddenly looked pained, Webby wringing her hands and Huey almost looking to the point of tears. McDuck gestured with his head towards the elevator, and they went quietly. It was once they were gone that McDuck looked back at Fenton.
“We didn’t want it to come to this, lad,” McDuck said with a weariness that betrayed his age. “Know that. Manny?”
Fenton didn’t see or hear the Headless Man-Horse. Just felt the stone legs wrap around him.
“Hey! Stop! Manny, let go!” Fenton ordered, kicking and struggling. Then his ankles were seized by Launchpad, his legs forced to be still. “Launchpad, stop!”
“Now, Gyro,” Mr. McDuck ordered.
“Sorry, Dr. Intern,” Dr. Gearloose said, approaching with a syringe. “But this is for your own good.”
Fenton felt the prick of the needle in his thigh.
He screamed with rage and helplessness.
His vision grew blurry, his eyelids heavy, his limbs like lead.
He stopped fighting. The fight was draining out of him. He grew very, very still.
Manny laid him out on the chaise. Fenton tried to force himself to keep awake, to keep blinking, to keep his eyes open. He needed to. She needed him to. He could do this, he could find her, he could, he would…
Fenton felt his mother’s hand on his brow, his eyes barely able to focus on her face as she gazed down at him sadly.
“Oh, pollito,” Rosa sighed. “We’re so sorry. But you need to rest, mijo. Gandra needs you to rest.”
His mother lied to him.
Gandra didn’t need him to rest.
She needed him to find her. Why couldn’t they see that?
His eyes closed, and did not reopen again for many hours.
Day 24
The lights had clicked off. She hadn’t moved in a long time. She just sat there, staring ahead, her knees to her chest. Or as far as they could get to her chest.
She couldn’t deny it any longer. As hard as she tried, she could not deny it. Not when she felt the proof. Could see the proof.
Gandra lowered her hand protectively over her belly, the first time she had done so, fully acknowledging the proof—and the truth behind that proof—for the first time.
“I’m pregnant.” She whispered, tears in her eyes, feeling numb, just so numb.
Alone. She had spent years and years being on her own, holding her own, and feeling like that was all she had ever known. And yet she had never felt more alone than in that moment.
Nearby, the harmonica music stopped. There was a small sigh.
And then it was just silence in the dark.
*****
Fenton stared at the two objects on the table. One was an invitation to a birthday party at Funso’s Fun-Zone, the other a wrapped present. He didn’t know what was in the box. His mother had done the shopping and wrapping for him. He’d be just as surprised as Webby when she opened it.
“I’ve got a better idea of what kind of present to get a young lady for her thirteenth birthday than you do, pollito,” Rosa had said, smiling softly as she cupped cheek. She had said it lovingly, playfully, and he knew there was definitely a lot of truth there. But there was also sadness and worry in his mother’s eyes. He hated making her worry about him, though he knew he wasn’t the sole cause of her worry.
Gandra…
Fenton pulled out his phone, bringing up the photo album he had disguised under a language-learning app icon.
Photos of Gandra stared back at him. Laughing, her eyes full of mischief, a playful smirk always ready on her face.
He paused on his favorite photo, the only one they had of the two of them together. A selfie, Gandra leaned against him, her eyes and expression much softer than in the other photos.
Today was the day.
He was going to find her today. At last, this would finally be over.
Fenton pressed the phone over his chest, closed his eyes.
“Wait for me,” He whispered. “I’m coming.”