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Webby jolted up. Her eyes dotted across the room in jagged sections, inspecting every nook and cranny she could attach to in the darkness and spend a few seconds staring at it before moving onto the next.
Her hand at some point had migrated from resting comfortably beneath her pillow from when she had been sleeping on her side, to now resting firmly in a grasp around her neck, with her other arm pressed harshly to her stomach.
She squeezed her own neck gently, feeling the rush of air push through it as her lungs shuddered with fear. Her stomach retched at the taste of cold, dusty air, and buckled beneath a gnawing pressure that made it impossible to breathe.
Still she sucked down another breath and slowly wiggled her way out of her sheets as a new found energy shot through both legs- she paced. From five short steps marking the whole length of her beds end, only to expand to about her the room, which would be about 20 steps once she was done reorganizing in the morning.
However tonight, it was only about 14 and a half steps, if she tried hard enough. And that wasn’t enough steps. She needed more.
Taking in a shallow breath of air to satisfy the burning in her lungs, Webby made it down her ladder safely, returning her arms back to their previous positions around her throat and stomach and set off down the hall.
She stopped just short of a partially opened door, and a room cast in heavy darkness and light snoring.
A sudden twinge of fear rang inside her- suddenly being caught had entered her mind, before quickly leaving as a sneering voice wormed its way into her thoughts.
She shuffled up against the door frame so that the backs of her feet were lined up with the start of the door’s thick frame and slowly she moved a few steps over from it till she walked a straight path down the hall, missing any and all important artifacts lining the way.
One deep breath. Her stomach shuddered.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty one. Twenty two. Twenty three. Twenty four. Twenty five. Twenty six. Twenty seven. Twenty eight. Twenty nine. Thirty.
Webby stopped, glanced down the half walked hall, then took in another deep breath. The itching to keep moving clawed at her again.
Thirty one. Thirty two. Thirty three. Thirty four- Had the bookshelf in the hall been moved slightly? Or had she grown so her steps were slightly larger? Had she miscounted? It used to be exactly 35 steps from the bedroom to the bookshelf!
A sudden whine crept up in her throat, and Webby threw herself around to recount her steps from the bookshelf and the door, somehow losing herself in the numbers as they kept going up, and never coming down.
At one point she had stopped counting the steps she took, and started rattling off numbers while her pace quickened. A hundred had just been reached when she could complete one lap from the doorframe to the bookshelf in under 10 seconds.
Next she was getting louder, faster, each step becoming a light jog into a brisk speed walk, back and forth, a hundred and fifteen, a hundred and sixteen, a hundred and seventeen- She planted one foot down louder then she was meaning too, and it echoed down the empty hall in a deafening roar.
In some way she acknowledged she had messed up, and tried to slow her pace so it didn’t happen again but she was already trapped in a loop that couldn’t be stopped. The sound rattled around her brain as something to keep a hold of incase someone noticed she was there, but it wasn’t prominent enough to latch onto.
A hundred and forty two, a hundred and forty three-
“Why is she doing that?” A low croak bubbled in her throat. Where was she? Right. A hundred and forty seven-
“She sounds like an angry frog! Quick- Take a video!”
Webby whimpered in repetitive waves. Making one hitch pitched moan, before an accompanying low pitched one. The sounds were quiet enough to not echo through the house, but loud enough to catch your ear if you were close- and someone’s ear had been caught fifty numbers and a hundred paces ago.
“Ay, what’re you doin’ up this late, lass?” Scrooge McDuck stood in the doorway, mindful to keep his feet inside his room and the tilt of his cane facing inward then out. His eyes followed Webby till she was just slightly out of view as she paced down to the bookcase, only to watch as she circled back.
Silence, or as silent as it could be in that moment, rained through the house as Webby continued making her sounds, and pittered across the frumpled carpet.
Taking a moment to mentally time her path, Scrooge took the opportunity to silently cross behind Webby’s path when she wasn’t looking, and take a seat against the adjacent wall of his bedroom as he watched the girl pace.
“Webby, dear,” He announced softly when she had taken the path back to his bedroom, and for a brief moment her eyes ripped away from the floor to catch his shadow in the dark hall.
Her brows tightened. The hand around her throat squeezed a little tighter, and the breaths became more rapid.
Then she did what she wasn’t supposed to do.
She bit down hard against the wrist of her other arm and spat up a few feathers.
Back to the bookcase-
“Webby, what happened?” Scrooge’s voice was the softest she had heard in years. “Did you have a nightmare?”
Her eyes tore away from the ground where she had been tracing the carpets weaving design and started following the slowly growing trail of feathers that were being torn from her wrist as she continued to bite.
“You don’t have to speak to tell me what happened. We can sign, do you know sign?”
Yes. Of course she knew sign.
Her jaw clamped down hard against her wrist.
Harder than she had ever bitten before.
Pain was pooling against her skin, threatening to burst forth in a warm, metallic waterfall.
Her breathing steadied long enough to get in a complete breath of air without her stomach churning at the feeling. Her legs still rumbled with energy, but a moment of brief pause had let exhaustion settle in.
Slowly she turned to face Scrooge who had taken a few tentative steps in the way of her path.
“It’s okay,” He whispered. “You’re safe here Webby. I won’t let anything happen to you.” He held out his hand, palm up, and wiggled his fingers a little as if he was waiting for her to hand him something.
She looked up at him, brows furrowed in confusion. Scrooge glanced down at her hand still firmly placed to her throat.
Webby shook her head gently, flexing the fingers around her throat to readjust so they wrapped more comfortably around.
Scrooge’s hand still remained out, holding steady as he shifted to sit more comfortably on the ground rather than kneeling against one knee. “Take yer time-” He glanced at the old, probably cursed, grandfather clock that ticked just down the hall. “But preferably not all night! Oh wee, is it really three?”
A small chuckle rose in his chest that died immediately when he turned to face Webby. Tears were now pooling, threatening to unleash a waterfall down her face, and Scrooge was planted firmly in its way, unable to stop the tidal wave with a handkerchief or even the warm brush of a hand.
“Oh! Bless me bagpipes, what happened? Did you hurt yourself?”
Webby stared at Scrooge with wide, unwavering eyes that were quickly blurring with tears. She had woken him up. She was keeping him awake- he was tired, and yawning, and clearly wanted to go back to bed.
But he couldn’t because she was there.
But she was making too much noise. She was being too much of a burden.
Why did she have to exist? Why did she have to be here? Right here? Right now? What was wrong with her?
A sniffle crumpled Webby to her knees, right against Scrooge’s chest where she finally released the grip against her throat, and the wrist from her mouth.
It didn’t last long however- her fingers were buzzing. They needed something, anything to cling to and her hair was the perfect target if it weren’t for the pair of hand’s blocking her way.
She strained against Scrooge’s gentle grasp as he whispered a few quick apologies and an excuse. “I can’t let you do that. You’ll hurt yourself,” He made extra effort to be light with his movements as he pushed back a few feathers from the dent in her wrist. “You’ve almost broken through your skin here.”
Webby whined loudly, twisting her arm in his. She needed to do something now , and she needed it quick.
A small, round, cold, object was pushed into her hand.
Slowly Scrooge’s grip was loosened and Webby was left with a dime placed firmly in an encrusted gold casing and strung up by a long, tight necklace chain.
She rubbed its cool surface to feel the bold 10 cents print against her thumb, only to rub it again and again. The grooves and texture flowed comfortably against her fingers, and fit nicely into her palm.
“Can’t believe no one ever thought to get you some kind of worry stone, or somethin’ of the sort.” Scrooge chortled from behind, his chest bouncing and rumbling in a way Webby had never heard before- probably because she rarely got to be so close to him.
“...I…. I’m sorry.” She croaked after a long pause.
“What for?”
Webby went silent again, still running her fingers over the coin’s large 10 . The urge to cry welled up again, and this time she didn’t hold back the sob that tore through her throat.
She clutched the dime tight in her hands and turned around till she could comfortably plant her face into his chest, and rub her cheek against the soft silky fabric of his pajamas.
Without thinking about it Scrooge moved in around her, wrapping two loose arms over her shoulders and patting her head gently in the same repetitive motion he had seen Beakley do a few times before.
She let out another whimpering cry, pushing further into his hug, before settling down a moment later.
For a brief moment- Scrooge caught his own tears, and stomped out the urge to coo another assurance at her. And for an even briefer moment he wondered if this was what he had been missing out on in all those years apart from Donald and the boys.
What he had been purposefully ignoring whenever he caught Beakley and Webby in the hall.
What he had shoved aside when Donald and Della had come to him at such a young age.
“I’ll cut ya a deal,” Scrooge away from the hug just long enough to see Webby’s face coated in silver strings of tears. “It’s getting pretty late so I’ll let you take the left side of my bed if you promise not to hoard all the blankets. Sound fair to ya?”
Webby nodded, quickly grabbing hold of the hand Scrooge offered to her when they stood up.
“Tomorrow we can talk about what happened, okay?”
“...Do I have too, Mr. McDuck?”
“Scrooge is fine,” He assured. Pausing for a moment. “Uncle Scrooge, if you want. And no, you don’t have to, but I would like it if you did.” He gently squeezed Webby’s hand in his, leading her along to the uplifted bed with four posts and low hanging curtains that swayed with new movement.
Webby took quickly to the left side of the bed, patting each pillow with a curious gaze and running wiggly fingers across the blankets.
She turned up to Scrooge, watching as he settled comfortably into bed, and mimicked how he laid down and rested his head against the pillow, glancing over from time to time to see if he was still awake.
“Webby?”
“Yes Mr- S-Scrooge. Uncle Scrooge?”
Scrooge let his eyes close for a moment, a smile growing on his face before he shook it off. “Can I have my dime back?”
“ Oh! ”
Webby pressed the dime back into Scrooge’s hand, which he turned around between his fingers, before slipping it over his head and placing it comfortably beneath his pajamas.
“Tomorrow we’ll get you your own dime, how’se about that?”
Turning over to lay on her chest, Webby watched Scrooge’s chest rise, and fall, while his eyes remained firmly shut. For the first time that night she let herself smile. “That sounds good, Uncle Scrooge.”