Louie awakens to his brother hovering worriedly over him. Dewey's expression melts into relief as Louie tries to sit up and groans.

"Hey, hey, take it easy," says Dewey.

"Where are we?" Louie manages to ask.

Dewey's beak curls back into a frown. "I don't know. That thing just grabbed us and – I have no idea where we are, or if the others are okay, or why it took us."

"I can answer one of those," mutters Louie. "This is all my fault."

"Well, yeah, from what I've heard," says Dewey. "So… why does it want us dead?"

"It doesn't want us dead, it wants you dead." Louie rubs his head and leans against the wall they've been deposited by. A quick survey of their surroundings tells him nothing useful. The room is dark, the walls are stone, and the time guardian is nowhere to be seen.

"Well, it took both of us."

"Gee, I hadn't realised," Louie snaps.

Dewey throws his hands in the air. "Dude, calm down. We just gotta figure a way out of this like we always do. Okay? Everything will turn out fine. It always does."

"It really doesn't," says Louie.

"When has it ever not turned out fine?"

"Why do you think I time-travelled? Because it sounded fun?"

Dewey leans back, brow furrowed.

"Well, kind of," he admits.

"I'm not you," Louie shoots back, which is a little harsh but it's true. At least they're in this mess for a good reason. Or maybe Louie isn't putting enough faith in his brother, because they've had the Temporal Time Stone in this timeline for a week and Dewey hasn't touched it yet.

"That's fair," says Dewey, apparently not insulted. "You'd sooner sell it then use it."

"Also fair," Louie concedes. He did want to sell it, before Dewey died and he knew he had to use it.

He's preparing himself for Dewey to ask what happened, but he doesn't. Instead he starts feeling around the walls, quietly humming to himself.

"Uh, what are you doing?" Louie asks.

"I'm looking for a secret passageway," says Dewey. He punches the wall in one place, then hisses and shakes his hand. "Nope, not there, definitely not there."

"Punching the wall is never a good choice," Louie deadpans.

"There's got to be some sort of stone somewhere we can press and get out of here." Dewey stretches to reach higher stones, grunting with the motion. He gives a couple of jumps, to no avail, and Louie sighs and walks over to his brother and helps him climb on his shoulders.

"How do you know there's a secret passageway?"

"There's gotta be," says Dewey. "That thing got us in here."

"Pretty sure it can, like, phase through solid objects."

"That way," says Dewey, leaning to the right. Louie groans and shimmies sideways, trying not to let the both of them topple over. Dewey makes a triumphant noise and bangs both fists on another stone. Louie's pretty sure he's wrong, again, except then there's the sound of shifting stone and Dewey whispers, "Nailed it!"

"Huh," says Louie.

"Okay, I'm going to climb in and then pull you up," says Dewey. Before Louie can respond, the weight disappears from his shoulders as Dewey clambers into the passageway. Then Dewey's hand appears to help Louie climb in as well. It's a tight fit, but it's definitely a way out. To where, Louie doesn't know. He's not sure he cares.

They crawl in silence. Louie blinks rapidly against the dust they're stirring up. It's pitch black – whatever stone Dewey had displaced had slid back into place soon after they got through.

"Woah!" Dewey suddenly yelps in front of him, nearly giving Louie a heart attack. There's a thud, followed by, "Ow. I'm okay! Careful, there's a drop!"

Louie rolls his eyes and feels forward to the edge. He tries his best to climb down it, but ends up sliding and scraping his palms pretty badly, based on the sting. He shakes them off and stands, because now there's room for that. He pulls out his phone and turns on the flashlight. Dewey is still sitting on the ground, rubbing his head. There's no blood, so Louie isn't exceedingly worried. Dewey has a hard head. He inspects his own hands. Yep, scraped. He mentally pushes that aside to check the status of his phone and the prospect of getting help.

"Ugh, there's no service," he grumbles. He tried to pull up the maps app, but it can't pick up a signal either. They're well and truly lost.

"We should keep going," says Dewey. "The farther we are, the better, right?"

"In theory," says Louie. He's so glad he remember to charge his phone after they got home. The light is definitely welcome to stumbling around in the dark. Louie isn't even sure if they're still in McDuck Manor. It's going to be bad if they aren't. Without service, they're on their own.

Dewey starts humming to himself again. Louie lets him. Dewey only hums like this when he's worried – usually he's big and boisterous with his singing. Anytime Dewey is subdued in any way is telling.

A loud, distant roar echoes, and Louie flinches. Dewey's brow furrows.

"Guess it realised we're gone," he says uneasily.

"Let's hope it doesn't know where to look," mutters Louie. He sighs and shakes his head. "How's your head?"

"Fine," says Dewey. "I've hit it way worse before. You know me."

"Still," says Louie.

Dewey resumes humming. Louie doesn't recognise the song; he figures his brother probably made it up, since Dewey sometimes did that. The chorus teacher once said he had "natural talent" and Dewey hadn't shut up for days. Dewey has "natural talent" for a lot of things, really. All Louie has is talking himself out of trouble, and even that tends to backfire. And math. He sort of has math. Math isn't going to do him much good right now, though, so he's basically useless.

"I know it's not fair of me to pressure you into telling me what happened," says Dewey abruptly, shoulders hunching. He doesn't turn to face Louie. "But we can fix this, right?"

"I hope so," says Louie.

"You have a plan?" Dewey asks.

Louie winces. "Well. I have the start of one, but I'm told 'don't die' isn't really a plan."

"Eh, that works."

Louie chuckles. Typical Dewey. Dewey's probably the last person to come up with a plan – he's always more likely to rush ahead without thinking. Louie wonders if his brother had had a plan when he saved his life. Had he anticipated that only one of them would make it out of that cave alive?

"Dewey," he says uneasily.

"Hmm?"

"If… if only one of us could make it out of this alive–"

"No." Dewey stops walking and turns to face Louie. He grabs him by the shoulders. "That's not an option, Louie, we're both gonna be fine."

The last time Louie had seen Dewey this serious was right before he'd been crushed by rocks, so he had a hard time believing that.

"But what if–"

"I'm not going to let you die," says Dewey. He hugs Louie as if this is any comfort, but Louie can't ignore that Dewey had said you and not us and that isn't okay. If anything, the one who shouldn't make it out of this is Louie. All of this is his fault to begin with.

That...

That might be a plan.

"Louie," says Dewey, brow furrowed. "We're going to be okay."

Louie refuses to reply. It turns out he doesn't have enough time to, anyway, because a split second later the right wall in front of them bursts apart in a shower of stones. Dewey grabs him and they drop to the ground. They're out of the way of most of the stones; only pebbles rain down on the two of them, thankfully.

Louie dares to look up. The time guardian has found them. Dewey's eyes narrow and he drags Louie to his feet.

"Run!" he yells, already pulling Louie behind him through the broken wall. Louie isn't sure running at the thing is the best choice, but it fails to catch them so it's not the worst choice either.

Nope, never mind, it's the worst choice – they end up outside in mid-air. They both scream as they drop several stories. Dewey wraps his arms around Louie, twisting both of them as if to take the majority of the impact.

"No – Dewey!" Louie protests.

They don't hit the ground. The time guardian snatches them out of the air, and Louie is momentarily relieved. At least they won't be duckling pancakes. Just whatever the thing decides to do to them.

"Time has been disturbed," the time guardian growls.

"Is that all you can say?" Louie asks warily, heart still racing from the adrenaline of the sudden fall.

"Llewellyn Duck."

Louie grimaces at his real name, then panics because this thing knows his name. That's great. The ancient time guardian knows his name.

"Please don't call me that," he says.

"Time must be restored," says the time guardian.

"Killing – killing Dewey isn't going to restore anything," he protests. "You're way too late for that, dude."

"Like, seriously too late," Dewey backs him up, even though Dewey has no idea what he's talking about. "You missed your chance! Go home!"

Its eyes narrow. Louie shoots his brother a look to tell him to be quiet and not draw attention to himself.

"Look, I get it, there are consequences to messing with time," says Louie. "I'm willing to face them–"

"What?"

"–but leave my family out of it."

"What!?" repeats Dewey. He twists and struggles in the time guardian's grasp until his arms are free, then grabs Louie by the shoulders and shakes him. "What are you doing? This was not in the plan!"

"We didn't have a plan," Louie points out.

"Any plan we were going to have would not involve whatever this is," Dewey says sharply

Louie ignores his brother. He tries to look more confident than he feels. He doesn't know what kind of consequences there might be, and he's kind of terrified to face them, but he's willing to if it means keeping Dewey alive. He takes a deep breath.

"If you have to kill one of us, kill me," he says.

Dewey yanks his face towards him, eyes wide. Louie wonders if that's how he looked, when Dewey died.

"No," Dewey says. He laughs – it sounds wrong. Desperate and wet and crazed. Tears gather in Dewey's eyes as his grip on Louie's cheeks tightens. "Louie, you're talking crazy." He turns his attention the time guardian. "He's crazy. Don't listen to him. He's lost it."

"Dewey, let go," Louie says quietly.

Dewey shakes his head and tightens his grip again to the point that it's getting painful. There's panic in his eyes and shoulders. Louie supposes he'd feel the same way if their positions were switched.

"Dewey," he says again, "let go of my face."

"I won't," says Dewey. "You can't make me."

The time guardian looks thoughtful. Dewey's crying now, tears cascading down his cheeks. Louie smiles at him. He never thought he'd be the self-sacrificial one, but he also never thought he'd see one of his brothers die. That changes people.

Louie doesn't want to die.

But even more than that, Louie wants his brother to live.

"Do we have a deal?" he asks the time guardian.

"No deal, no deal!" begs Dewey.

The time guardian sets them both on the ground. Louie jerks away from his brother and takes a step forward, but Dewey catches his hand and shakes his head.

"Tell the others I'm sorry," mumbles Louie. "You died for me last time. It's my turn to die for you."

He yanks his hand away and closes his eyes as the time guardian grabs him; the last thing he hears is Dewey sobbing his name, before the world fades away for the last time.

A/N: I'm so sorry.

Okay, first, I'm sorry this took so long to update - it's that time of the semester and school comes first, so I've only been able to grab a few minutes to work on this most days. I'm also sorry for the angst, it was an accident. This may or may not be eight chapters. we'll see how seven goes.

Thanks for all the kind comments and kudos you guys! I love you all and hope you enjoyed this mess of a chapter!