A month had passed since Della Duck had gone missing, lost to the vast emptiness of space. The hope that had once flickered in the hearts of her family had dimmed to a steady, painful ache. Despite their best efforts, there was still no sign of her. The mystery of her disappearance hung over the mansion like a heavy fog, and every corner seemed to whisper her name.
Scrooge McDuck paced around the mansion, his thoughts tangled in frustration and guilt. The treasure hunter’s mind usually raced with schemes, but today, it was weighed down with a deep sense of loss. He hadn't spoken much of it to anyone, but the absence of Della gnawed at him—he felt it in every creak of the floorboards, in every empty chair at the dinner table.
Donald Duck, meanwhile, had been even worse. His temper was shorter, his patience thinner, and every time someone mentioned space, or Della, he snapped. He didn’t know how to deal with the grief, so he buried it under an angry scowl and sarcastic remarks. To him, Della’s disappearance wasn’t just a tragedy; it was a reminder of how life had always seemed to deal his family a cruel hand.
The two had avoided each other for weeks, each caught in their own struggle. But today, things broke.
---
It started innocently enough. Scrooge had been tinkering with an old space device he thought might help find Della. He muttered under his breath, adjusting the knobs and wires as his frustration mounted.
"I swear, if this blasted thing worked half as well as I paid for it, we’d have a lead by now!" Scrooge cursed under his breath.
Donald walked into the room, rubbing his eyes from a long night of trying to make sense of paperwork that never seemed to end. "You’ve been working on that thing for weeks, Uncle Scrooge. If it was gonna work, it would’ve by now."
Scrooge spun around, his face hardening. "You don’t think I know that, Donald?" he snapped. "But what do you expect me to do? Sit around and wait for her to come back? Let me tell you something—this is the only chance we have left to find her."
Donald, already on edge, bristled. "You think I don’t want to find her, huh? You think I don’t feel the same pain you do?!" He threw his arms up in frustration, knocking over a stack of papers. "But nothing’s working! She’s out there somewhere, and we can’t do a darn thing about it!"
"Don’t you dare—!" Scrooge’s voice rose, his old veins pumping with the same intensity that had helped him climb to the top of the financial world. "I’ve spent my whole life doing things, Donald. And sometimes... sometimes the best thing we can do is try." His voice wavered slightly, but he quickly steeled himself. "Don’t act like I don’t care, lad. I care more than you know."
Donald’s feathers fluffed up in anger. "Oh, I know exactly how much you care, Uncle Scrooge. Always trying to fix things with money and gadgets. But this time, you can’t buy your way out of it! And you sure as heck aren’t going to fix things by burying your head in that machine! Della’s gone, and that’s the hard truth."
Scrooge’s breath caught in his throat. "You don’t get it!" he shouted, voice cracking. The outburst was uncharacteristic of the usually stoic billionaire, but the months of silence and unspoken grief had been eating away at him. "I... I failed her. I promised her that I'd look after her boys, and instead, I let her go off into space, thinking I could protect her from everything. I’ve spent my whole life building my empire, and now look at me. Now look at what I’ve lost!"
Donald froze, guilt flashing in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.
Scrooge’s voice dropped to a broken whisper. "I don’t know how to do this, Donald. I don’t know how to fix this." His trembling hands reached for the bottle of whiskey on the table beside him. "I thought... I thought I could do it all, but I can’t."
Donald stood there, torn. He could feel the weight of Scrooge’s pain, but he also felt his own—heavy, suffocating. His anger had always been a shield, but it was cracking now. In the silence that followed, he saw Scrooge, not as the tycoon or the tough uncle, but as someone just as lost and broken as himself.
But then the door opened, and Huey, Dewey, and Louie entered the room, looking wide-eyed at the tension between the two. "What’s going on?" Huey asked cautiously.
Donald turned to them, shaking his head. He couldn’t stay here anymore—not with the arguments, not with the hurt. "You know what? I can’t do this," he muttered under his breath. "I can’t keep pretending things are okay when they’re not." He rubbed his face in frustration. "I’m leaving. I’m taking the boys. We’ll go back to Duckburg... I don’t know, somewhere where things don’t hurt so much."
Scrooge opened his mouth to protest, but Donald was already gone, storming out of the room with the boys in tow.
---
Later that night, Scrooge sat alone in Della's room, the light from the window casting shadows over the empty bed. The bottle of whiskey sat beside him, nearly empty. His eyes, red-rimmed and weary, stared at the stars outside.
The guilt was suffocating. He had always been the one to hold things together, to lead, to be strong. But this time, he didn’t know how to fix it.
"Della, lass," he whispered, his voice trembling. "I’m so sorry... I should’ve been there for you. I should’ve—"
A sob caught in his throat, and for the first time in a long time, Scrooge McDuck allowed himself to cry.
---
Meanwhile, Donald and the boys had already left the mansion, their car driving down the long road toward Duckburg. The silence in the car was heavy, but Donald kept his eyes straight ahead, focusing on the road. The boys were quiet, too—though Huey and Dewey exchanged worried glances, Louie had fallen asleep in the backseat, exhausted from the emotional toll.
The weight of the fight still hung in the air, but at least there was some space between them now—space that neither of them knew whether to fill or leave empty.
Maybe some distance would help. Maybe it would hurt even more.
But for now, they just kept moving forward.
