Rating: It starts off PG, but the rating will become PG 13 as the story develops, and it might even push that occasionally.

Disclaimer: I don't own DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, Quack Pack, or any of the familiar characters in this story. They all belong to Disney. I only own Viktor Crow, Bill Avian, and a handful of other very minor OCs.

Timeline: Takes place during early Darkwing Duck, and maybe about one year after the DuckTales series.

Featured Characters: Scrooge, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Donald, Daisy, Darkwing, Launchpad, Gizmoduck, Glomgold, F.O.W.L, Hooter, and more. There will even be a cameo or two of one shot characters from DuckTales and Darkwing.

Author's Note: My goal with this story was to combine the adventure of DuckTales, the criminal action of Darkwing Duck, and the drama of The Life & Times of Scrooge McDuck (Don Rosa version) and create my own little epic crossover that I've always wanted to see between the shows since they originally aired - though this storyline is a little bit more extreme and more serious than what I would have come up with as a kid. ;) This is mostly a DuckTales fiction. I'm not a Quack Pack fan, but my version of Daisy might be a bit inspired by QP, and Donald's job is. This story is tentatively divided into three parts.

I realize the timelines between DuckTales & Don Rosa's L&ToSM don't actually match, but this story assumes they do in one aspect - the Klondike sections of the Life & Times and its companion (King of the Klondike, Hearts of the Yukon, The Prisoner of White Agony Creek, Last Sled to Dawson, Back to the Klondike). I use those rather than the 'Back to the Klondike' or "Once Upon a Dime" episodes of DuckTales. You don't have to be familiar with Rosa's work to enjoy the story, but it might add a little something if you are.

Please read and review and let me know what you think! I've had this particular story in my head for well over a year, but I'm picking up the pen again (so to speak) after a writing absence.

Part One: After the Ball

Prologue

All good things come to an end. All those who live eventually die. It is inevitable, caused by the passage of time. There is no stopping it, no delaying it….and yet, what happens if it is delayed? If time reverses for a single individual, what happens to that individual as the world around him continues to move forward? What becomes of the one on the brink of death that is given a second chance at life?

And if there is a shadow that follows him, a shadow that captures him, will he be swallowed up by that shadow?

Or will he become it?………

Scrooge McDuck was cold.

It wasn't the snow beneath his feet or the biting wind that assaulted him from every direction - it came from within him.

For years it had been buried as deeply as his old trunk in the vault of his money bin back in Duckburg, locked away, only to be dredged up when the memories became too strong to bear.

She was the key. And now the key was gone; she was gone, and it would be forever left open. Forever there in his head, haunting him with her song of days long passed. Wasted seconds, minutes, hours, days, months….

Years. So many years.

All of his hard work, all of his success…. She was the one treasure that he'd held in his hand only for it to fall from his grasp. He'd let it fall. He'd let her go, expecting her to always be there; the Star of the North, always shining brightly in the midnight sky.

Seven days ago, that star had gone out. Goldie O'Gilt was dead. The letter that had come from the Frostbit Arms, the hotel that had once been the Blackjack Ballroom, had been addressed to him, and inside he'd found a letter from an employee of Goldie's that he'd never met. She'd taken ill and died suddenly. Just like that, his Star of the North had was lost to him. Forever.

His bones ached. He tightened his grip on his cane to remain balanced; he found he needed it these days. No longer was the cane a decoration, now it was a necessity. After being oblivious to his age for so long, the reality of it was weighing down on Scrooge, heavier than all of his precious money in his bin in Duckburg.

Time had caught up to Goldie, and time was watching him; a shadow that lingered behind him, ever lengthening, ever edging closer to him. One day it would reach him, as surely as it would reach Soapy Slick, whom he'd run into in town the day he'd arrived. The face of his old enemy had appeared to age a century in the short few years since Scrooge had last seen him - when he returned to White Agony Creek for the sled he'd lost years ago. His face had been lined then, his black hair turned gray, but he'd still doggedly pursued Scrooge, determined to take the contents of the sled because he'd assumed them to be gold. Now, however, he was stooped over, held up only by a cane of his own, and his face was withered and sagging.

Soapy had looked fragile….fragile and old. Did Scrooge look the same? Was that how he appeared to his nephews?

His nephews.… He had been given a second chance with them. His parents, his sisters, and now Goldie…they were all gone, but he still had Huey, Dewey, and Louie. And Webby. And of course, there was Donald.

Time had provided him with a new family, but on days like this one, he wondered how much of it he had left with them. Age hadn't meant anything to him in these recent years, especially once Donald had dropped the boys into his life. Adventure after adventure kept him separate from his physical years; his enjoyment of having family to share in his ongoing search for treasures and wealth distracting him from his own mortality.

Mrs. Beakley's passing a month earlier had brought reality down upon him with the force of a crashing stock market, and the sudden, agonizing news of Goldie following her only served to deepen the blow it had dealt him.

For all of the astounding things he'd accomplished, for every piece of gold and treasure that he'd uncovered, for all the money that he'd earned, Scrooge McDuck had never gained immortality. And he never would. He hoped and believed that he would be remembered by his nephews and Webby, and that his story would not be forgotten like the Klondike gold rush that had given him his first million years ago.

And maybe when his time reached an end, Goldie would be there waiting for him. And in the next world, if one existed, it wouldn't be as futile as it had been here. He would go to her.

He would go to her like he never had in life.

Pulling his coat more tightly around him, Scrooge leaned heavily on his cane as he turned away from the familiar cabin in White Agony Valley and made his way across the snow covered landscape. Alone.