all of my attempts seem to weather

Summary: Scrooge and Goldie continue to hunt for gold.

Word count: 4096

Warnings: None

May/June 1898; Along the Chilkoot Trail

Despite the problems and theft early on, Scrooge felt confident about Canyon City and decided to stick with that town for another two months. Two months of hard, back-aching work that led to a sizable amount of gold in his pockets.

After dropping that gold off at the bank in Whitehorse (he didn’t like banks, but he had enough gold to justify the necessity), a town just a few miles north on the Chilkoot Trail, Scrooge decided he wasn't quite ready to move on from mining. He had plenty of capital to pay for each new claim in cash, but not enough to comfortably start building a business of his own.

But he had plans. Thanks to that goose egg nugget he found outside of Dawson, his five-year plan was cut down to three. Wouldn't be long before he could swap his dirty ratty clothes for a suit and tie, then go back to Glasgow and save his family from poverty.

Every time he thought about Dawson, Scrooge's thoughts drifted back to Goldie. He didn't know what to think when she came to mind, but he knew that once he started, it was hard to stop.

Thanks to her, he was learning a lot about himself that he'd never really thought about before. Things that he hadn’t known he didn't know.

It was a little scary.

And even scarier was that he didn't know if she was done with him or not. He didn't know what he'd prefer. If she never came around again, then he could move on and stop turning his head at every noise. If she came back, then...then he'd certainly like to see her. But also he wouldn't. But he would.

His feelings were complicated. She reminded him that life could be fun and frustrating and unpredictable, which was both a blessing and a curse. So he threw that confused energy into working harder. And his trip from Canyon City to Finnegan's Point went faster than he would’ve thought possible.

Scrooge had made sure people knew where he was headed next. The thought that that information might find its way to Goldie was at the back of his mind, but really he wanted to brag. Slowly, Scrooge McDuck was making his way to Uncle Sam's territory and he had a lot of ideas for what to do down there.

Finnegan's Point was small and quiet. Not many people around, and those that were there mostly kept to themselves.

Every time Scrooge heard a noise - a twig cracking, a crunch in the snow, the wind howling especially hard - he wondered if it was Goldie coming to mess with him again.

He spent a month and a half looking over his shoulder before it seemed Finnegan's Point was all used up.

Goldie was a temptress and just the thought of her arrival got him jumpy and nervous. Though almost three months without sight or sound of her made him think they'd reached their end. Maybe the gold she’d stolen from him was enough for the Blackjack and she didn't need him anymore.

And that was fine, he said to himself over and over and over again.

After another trip to Whitehorse, Scrooge popped on down to Skagway. He knew this town had been run almost entirely by Soapy Slick, but with the hog six months dead there was no way his gang would still have control of the area. Which meant it was finally safe for him to move into the territory and grab all the gold he could dig up.

Goldie hadn’t been on his mind since he left Finnegan’s Point. Except for every single night. Just before he fell asleep. He didn’t want to waste any more time fantasizing about what could’ve been or thinking about how she might be doing up in Dawson. He just wanted to focus on work.

But on the ninth day of mining in Skagway, he was reminded that life was never that easy for Scrooge McDuck.

---

In the few months since her return from Canyon City, Goldie had been hard at work in Dawson. Thanks to the help of a kind man headed in the same direction, she was able to make the trip back in only three days between the wagon and the boat, so she decided to use that extra time wisely.

With the gold in her pockets, Goldie bought the two buildings next to the Blackjack Saloon and started to expand. It wasn’t just about the saloon anymore. She wanted a hotel! A place where people could comfortably stay with their family or just a place for a weary traveler to lay his head.

A place a miner could find himself returning to because he wanted to see a certain thief that had been on his mind, maybe.

Though she thought after their tryst in Canyon City that Scrooge would follow her to Dawson, Goldie figured after ten days with no sign of him that there was no way he was coming. She decided that she’d overestimated how far he’d follow her, and knew that in the future she needed to stay within town limits to keep his attention.

...not that her only interest was keeping his attention. Obviously. But it was on her list.

It took two months for the Blackjack’s expansion to finish. Goldie’s business was doing fairly well considering the state of Dawson City. It’d been slowing down significantly since the beginning of the year. Suddenly it was May and the population was a fraction of what it used to be: new miners and their families were no longer moving to town, and businesses were starting to close. She was determined not to join them, even if it meant financing and running everything by herself.

Her shows still went on as usual. Every night the saloon had three women sing and dance on stage, but the audience was dwindling. The girls who had yet to find a man were starting to realize that being a dancehall girl was considered a bad thing when it came to looking for a husband and so workers were dwindling, too.

By the end of May, Goldie only performed once a week. She couldn’t stand the sight of such a sad little audience, and if she limited herself to Friday nights, they were more likely to get a crowd. It was the one night a week they made real money and she had to milk it every time it came around.

One particularly chilly evening at the end of the month, Goldie was working behind the bar when a man she barely recognized walked in. Her weekday customers tended to be regulars, so an unfamiliar face always caught her attention.

Though he wasn’t completely unfamiliar. It was one of Soapy’s lackeys - men she hadn’t seen or heard from since she followed Scrooge to his claim the year before.

No one had ever asked her about Soapy’s disappearance. It seemed strange to her that he’d managed to find Scrooge’s claim after so much searching and hadn’t told anyone where he was headed. But he was always an overconfident man, he probably didn’t think he’d need the backup.

The man glanced towards Goldie and then sidled over to the bar, taking a seat and leaning on his forearms menacingly.

“...what can I getcha?” Goldie asked, pretending not to recognize him.

“Beer,” he answered quickly. “And some answers.”

She started to draw beer from the tap and quirked an eyebrow in his direction. “Answers about what?”

"I know Soapy went after your scent last year and I ain't seen him since. So where'd he go?"

Goldie put the full mug down in front of him, too professional to spill a single drop. “Hell if I know. Maybe he’s buried under six feet of snow.”

The guy grabbed his drink and took a big gulp, wiping excess on his sleeve as he glared at her harder. “Interestin’ theory. Care to elaborate on that?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I was just throwing out a suggestion. I don’t know anything. He may have come after me, but he sure as hell didn’t find me.”

“Fine,” he said harshly, chugging down the rest of his beer. “Then it shouldn’t be a problem if we look around ‘n ask around, should it?”

Goldie’s right eye twitched the tiniest bit. “Do whatever you want. It’s got nothing to do with me.”

“Sure it don’t.”

Without paying, he left the Blackjack and wandered off, leaving Goldie to wonder if she was in trouble. Sure, she didn’t kill Soapy, but if they found McDuck and asked him about it, he could implicate her! No one else knew anything, but Scrooge McDuck did and she didn’t know who he’d spoken to.

She had to find him and find out before they got into big trouble over nothing.

---

Thankfully, Goldie knew that Scrooge kept all his money in Whitehorse, so she took a quick boat ride down the Yukon and stopped there to ask the locals if they knew where McDuck was currently mining. A little bit of flirting with an awkward general store clerk was all she needed to get her answer: Skagway.

Everyone knew that was Soapy’s turf, so Goldie felt a little nervous at the news. If Scrooge bragged to anyone down there about them taking out Soapy Slick, the news would spread faster than she could get down there to stop him.

But she hadn’t heard anything yet, so Goldie hoped that Scrooge wasn’t as much of a braggart about fighting as he was about money. With any luck, this would be a quick, easy trip.

---

Unlike the last time she'd caught up to him, Goldie didn't hope to surprise Scrooge with her arrival. Though she packed work clothes just in case she needed to stick around, she had every intention of asking him about Soapy, fucking him if she felt like it, and then going on her way.

What she couldn't have expected to find was Scrooge chatting with some townie - chatting happily, it seemed - and leaning on his axe like some kind of dumb teenager.

She wasn't able to ignore her jealous impulses and quickly walked over to them, loudly clearing her throat to get their attention.

Scrooge and the girl both turned to Goldie. The girl looked confused, but her expression was nothing compared to his. Scrooge completely lost his balance and almost fell over as he stuttered, "G...Goldie?!"

Goldie walked a few steps closer and crossed her arms over her chest. "The one and only."

Scrooge couldn't take his eyes off of her and struggled to find his words. "Y-you, um...you look very, uh...your hair…"

The young girl huffed and stormed off at the sight of the deep blush on Scrooge's cheeks.

"My hair?" Goldie reached up and realized her hair had come loose during the last hour of her journey and was flowing past her shoulders. "Right, well...the only barber shop in Dawson shut down and I haven't had time to cut it myself, so-"

"It looks...nice," Scrooge mumbled quickly, still with his eyes on her. "You should keep it long. I mean...if you want to."

His unexpected kindness and nervousness was genuinely adorable and Goldie found herself wanting to kiss him and drag him back to Dawson on the next boat. Instead she stepped forward, bringing their faces closer together and letting the top of her beak gently touch the bottom of his.

"Maybe I will, sourdough."

His heart was beating so loud, Scrooge was sure she could hear it. "Did you...come here to find me?"

Goldie glanced up at him and batted her eyelashes. She just wanted to get lost in his arms and - wait, why did she come all the way to Skagway?

Ah, right.

"...sort of," she said, pulling a bit away from him. "I heard you were down here in Soapy Slick's territory and I wanted to make sure you didn't...well. Say anything."

Scrooge raised a curious eyebrow at her. "Say anything about what?"

She looked surprised for a moment, then scooted closer and talked quieter. "About Soapy's death, obviously."

He almost jumped at her words and suddenly grabbed Goldie's arm, tugging her away from any stores or people but not too far as to raise suspicions. He whispered aggressively, "Hey! I'm tryin' not to let that news get out, O'Gilt! Half this town thinks they're still workin' for him and it won't be a good day when they find out otherwise."

Goldie pulled her arm out of his grasp and scoffed. "I know that!" she said with some sass. "Don't try to explain the situation to me when I've got gangsters coming into my saloon, asking me weird questions and stealing my drinks!"

Her angry reaction left Scrooge feeling no better, and he decided he didn't care how pretty she looked, if she was going to get mad at him for being nice and warning her to stay quiet, then he wouldn't be nice anymore. "I don't need your Dawson sob story, Goldie. If you hadn't stolen my nugget and stalked me to my claim, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place!"

She threw her hands up in the air. "It's been almost a year! What do you want from me, a formal, written apology?"

Not interested in backing down, Scrooge crossed his arms over his chest. "That could be a good start."

Goldie blinked in surprise before shoving him suddenly, making him lose his balance once again. "Keep dreaming, McDuck!" In one big swoop, Goldie pulled a pickaxe out of her bag and held it dramatically in her hands. "I've decided this seems like a good place to dig for some gold, actually."

"What?" Scrooge shouted, startled by the change of topic. “You’re not serious!”

“As a heart attack,” she said, leaning forward to glare at him properly. She hadn't planned on this, but the way he spoke to her like she was some kind of idiot made her want to fight him. "Try not to have one when I get all your gold."

Scrooge sputtered as Goldie sauntered away from him. He didn't understand what just happened and it was putting him on edge. They were...they seemed...fine? Or flirty? Or something?! And then suddenly she was mad at him and challenging him and he didn’t know what to do about it!

So he made the only reasonable choice: he accepted her challenge.

---

Goldie hadn’t expected to be away from Dawson for so long. It’d been almost two weeks and though she’d dug up a fairly significant amount of gold - all on her own, ha ha to Scrooge - she was tired and achy and a little sad.

Every attempt she made to tease or flirt with Scrooge was met with dismissal or anger. It was like she couldn’t even get a word in before he started yelling at her to go away.

Sure, she’d shoved him when she first arrived. But before that he almost seemed happy to see her. How could a little yelling or a little shove make him do such a complete 180? Didn’t he want to see her at all?

And it was getting a little embarrassing, too. All the people in this town were nosy, and Goldie could tell that she and Scrooge had become a topic of conversation. Apparently their fights were entertaining to the locals. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t get it - a hot blonde and an accented foreigner fighting publicly every day? That’d get her attention, too. But it was even harder to get a quiet moment with Scrooge when every time he turned around, some stranger’s eyes were on him.

She wished he’d staked a claim further from town like he did in Dawson.

On her fourteenth day in Skagway, Goldie decided she couldn’t do it anymore. It was time to make a serious move on Scrooge and/or head back to Dawson. She wanted to check on her businesses and make sure everything was going alright.

Unlike in Canyon City, Goldie wasn’t going to sleep with him and then steal from him. After last time, she decided that stealing from him first was more likely to get him to follow her.

She packed up all her stuff in the morning and made sure to be loud enough to grab Scrooge’s attention. He was going to be completely aware of her whether he wanted to be or not. As he stared at her from the front flaps of his tent, Goldie glanced at him from the corner of her eye and smiled just the slightest bit.

Scrooge glared as his cheeks turned pink. He grumbled and went back inside.

Goldie threw her backpack over her shoulders and walked over to his tent. She looked around and tried to decide what to steal, but realized that he must be keeping his gold inside the tent with him.

No problem.

She put her bag down and quickly crawled inside, undeterred by Scrooge’s squawk of surprise.

“G-Goldie?! What are ye-?!”

She kept crawling forward and brought her beak right up against his, leaving less than an inch of space between them. Watching him sweat was always a pick-me-up. She smirked as her right hand dug into a nearby bag.

Bingo.

Goldie pecked his beak briefly - just the smallest, quickest kiss in the world - and then rushed out of his tent with a handful of gold. She grabbed her backpack and strapped it on while running towards the other end of town.

Scrooge, meanwhile, sat there unmoving like an idiot. His face was bright red and he had no idea what had just happened.

After a few seconds of staring at nothing, he turned his head and noticed his newly-disturbed bag of gold nuggets. It didn’t take a genius to realize what just happened, and Scrooge felt his eye twitch in anger as he tried to rationalize everything. Once again, Goldie spent plenty of time mining for gold on her own, only to steal from him and run off. Why? Why the hell would she do that?! It didn’t make any sense!

He’d thought she might try to seduce him again, which is why he’d been keeping his distance. But somehow she still managed to get some of his gold. And pathetically enough, he didn’t want to get his gold back. Her presence was starting to feel like some sort of karmic punishment or a lesson that he should’ve learned when he was younger: don’t ever let your guard down around a thief or a woman. And especially not both.

Scrooge sighed loudly and laid down. He still had plenty of work to do in Skagway, so he needed to forget about her and move on. Hopefully this would be the last time she ever messed with him.

---

Goldie waited at the edge of town for fifteen minutes. She kept peeking her head around to see if Scrooge would emerge from his tent and angrily chase after her, but...nothing.

She looked at the small handful of gold nuggets and sighed. Pocketing them, Goldie continued on her way back up north.

So she’d been wrong. Scrooge had no interest in chasing her down even when she stole some of his gold. He’d chased her down back in Dawson! He’d briefly chased her back in Canyon City! So...something went wrong in Skagway. Maybe he was just too on-edge. Maybe he was over it.

She thought back to the woman she’d seen Scrooge talking to when she first arrived in town. Maybe he was moving on.

It was a reasonable thought, considering how much time there was between Goldie’s little visits. She didn’t enjoy leaving Dawson, but if she wanted to keep his attention, she’d have to invest a little more time in seeing him. Though she wasn’t usually one to take advice from others, Goldie thought she’d ask Snake-Hips for her opinion. She’d been in a long-distance relationship with some skinny dog for a few years and they seemed perfectly fine together.

Goldie didn’t think it would be appropriate to define whatever was going on between her and Scrooge as a long-distance relationship. She didn’t think there was a definition for whatever it was. They were enemies. They were rivals. They were lovers. They certainly weren’t friends.

Despite all the emotional confusion, Goldie could at least be happy that these adventures were making her richer. Scrooge certainly did know all the best spots to dig for gold.

---

Everything was perfectly fine when Goldie got back to Dawson a few days later. In fact, there didn’t seem to be a single problem in the three weeks she’d been away, which was both comforting and a little agitating.

It was great that they could handle everything without her - fantastic, even! Goldie could confidently leave Dawson and her businesses without worrying that everything would go up into flames while she was away. But at the same time...they were her businesses. Her saloon. Her hotel. Hers.

Goldie sighed and leaned on her elbows, staring out the window of her room at the Blackjack. She knew she was being overly sensitive after such a disappointing romp with Scrooge, and Snake-Hips’ advice wasn’t particularly helpful. She talked a lot about writing letters (and not just dirty letters, but also talking about their daily activities and their friends and their lives) and said that being apart for months at a time wasn’t a problem. In fact, according to Snake-Hips, the longer they were apart, the more he wanted her when they came back together again.

Goldie couldn’t imagine Scrooge feeling that kind of intense desire for her, even after months of nothing. He’d probably be too confused to be horny. And she didn’t want to write him a letter! Writing a letter about...what? Her feelings? Her love of gold? How every night she dreamt about the night they killed Soapy and slept together and she couldn’t get it off her mind no matter how hard she tried?

What would that accomplish? Scrooge would dismiss anything she said to him as a lie or a trick. That was all he thought of her, and she wanted to be mad about it, but she couldn’t blame him. Lying and conning came very naturally to her. Telling the truth and being genuine from the bottom of her heart? That kind of shit did not. Being a pick-pocket meant she had to get physically close to her marks and never get emotionally close. Never.

Despite all these words going through her head, Goldie still had a few pieces of paper and a pen on her desk waiting for her. She’d been attempting to write something for over an hour and kept crossing out the words and crumpling up the paper. It was a serious waste of money.

But she couldn’t write words that made sense. She couldn’t figure out a way to describe exactly what was going through her head, and nothing was coming out even remotely adequately! She wasn’t a writer, obviously, but this shouldn’t be so tough.

After another hour and several more crumpled pieces of paper and almost an entire bottle of wine, Goldie did find her words. She found them, she wrote them down, and she absolutely hated them. What she wrote was confusing and asinine and mushy and weird. This wouldn’t solve any of her Scrooge problems - it would just make things worse. Not that they could get much worse after their last interaction.

She sighed and folded up the letter, popping it in an envelope and angrily scribbling Scrooge’s name on the front. No, she wasn’t going to send it to him, but...in twenty years, after she married some random schmuck and had twelve annoying kids and cooked and cleaned all day instead of working, she wanted to be able to look back at this letter and remember exactly how it felt to be so...so...so confused. It would be a nice reminder that it was a good idea to move on from Scrooge.

Goldie glared at his name on the envelope, which seemed to be laughing at her. Maybe she’d had too much to drink. She tossed the envelope to the floor, not noticing as it slid out under her door and into the hallway, too focused on how comfortable her bed looked. She flopped onto it and went straight to sleep, hoping to whatever God was out there that she didn’t dream about Scrooge again.

REAL HISTORY FACTS:
- Whitehorse is another real gold rush town!
- The Chilkoot Trail is the name of the main trail from the southern gold rush town of Skagway all the way up north past Dawson City. The name Chilkoot comes from the Natives - it's the name of a specific tribe of Tlingit Natives
- Finnegan's Point is another real gold rush stop. I don't think it exists anymore
- Skagway is also real and it's where Soapy Smith (the conman that Soapy Slick is based off of) spent most of his time. Also it's where he was killed lol
- During the gold rush, Dawson City went from maybe a few hundred people to well over 10,000 people. And then only a few years later it dwindled down to maybe 2,000. By 1899 a lot of people left and businesses were closing down

DUCK FRANCHISE REFERENCES:
- The Whitehorse Bank is the one Scrooge used in the comics and then bought when he became a millionaire
- Goldie turning the Blackjack into a hotel is another Rosa comic reference
- Also, Goldie writing Scrooge a letter about her feelings is a Rosa reference. Though in the comic she wants him to get it and read it and here she does not