it started out like it always ends

Summary: Goldie follows Scrooge to his claim.

Word count: 3519

Warnings: None

1897; White Agony Creek

Goldie was angry and sweating and if she hadn’t seen McDuck’s own lantern in the distance, she’d have been certain that Scrooge somehow tricked her into going the wrong way. She’d had a feeling this would be a bit of a trek, but it’d been two hours already and all she could say for certain was that Moosehide Mountain was much larger than she realized.

Also: mountain climbing was not fun. She didn’t see herself doing this ever again if she could help it. And definitely not at night.

Despite all the dirt and sweat and scratches and random animals scurrying around, Goldie couldn’t take her mind off the fact that Scrooge hadn’t slowed down - not once, not for even a second - so she wouldn’t either. Maybe her legs would hurt like hell in the morning, but at least she could shove her pick-axe in that crass miner’s face and show him he was wrong about her.

It wasn’t like she was unused to men making every assumption about her that crossed their minds. But there was something about this particular miner and the way he accused her of being just like Soapy Slick...it struck a nerve. She couldn’t shake off the need to prove him wrong. Soapy tricked and lied and conned and took every advantage he could find, but he did it simply because he wanted to. Goldie did it because she had no other choice.

And she did work hard. She worked hard as hell to get to where she was - and she did it all by herself. No family to help her out, no one to hold her hand when things got hard. She wasn’t someone who caught lucky breaks, either, she had to fail hundreds of times to earn all the skills she had at the tender age of 29.

With all that angry ranting tumbling around in her head, Goldie didn’t even realize how far into the mountain she’d gotten. She’d never traveled this far from Dawson before - she was sure if the sun was out, she wouldn’t even be able to see the town behind her. Scrooge McDuck was quite a paranoid guy if his claim was this far out of the way, but it made a certain sense. Less people around meant he’d get more space all to himself.

Well, he used to have it all to himself. Now she’d be taking some, too, and he’d have to admit that she was just as capable as him.

That thought in mind kept her feet moving, though Goldie was feeling spectacularly tired. She’d had to be on her feet far longer than this when she performed show after show after show, but this time she went straight from performing to running without much of a break in-between. The long day and even longer night was starting to catch up to her, but she couldn’t lose sight of her goal.

She glared down the path she was walking and suddenly stopped. Where the hell was Scrooge?

With a sudden burst of energy, Goldie rushed down the steep path - almost losing her footing several times - and as she turned a corner, she came face-to-face with the angriest duck she’d ever seen.

She stopped just before she bumped into him, but her hand still managed to brush against his for a brief moment before she stepped back.

“What do ye think you’re doing?!” Scrooge asked in a low growl, his lantern held tight in his hand.

Goldie took a few deep breaths, trying to get her story straight. She didn’t expect to catch up to him until they were at his claim and she hadn’t really planned on explaining herself. “What do you think I’m doing, sourdough?”

“I think you’ve been sent by Soapy to find my claim and steal my gold!” Scrooge yelled, giving her a rough shove. “Get out of here right now before you regret followin’ me!”

“Soapy?!” Goldie looked deeply offended and shoved him right back. “This has nothing to do with him! I just couldn’t stand your stupid patronizing attitude, you big galoot!”

Scrooge looked confused, but kept his glare on her. “So what? You just followed me out here to try and convince me you’re more than some petty thief? Good luck with that, O’Gilt! I know a liar when I see one and you’re nothin’ but!”

She let out a raged screech before lunging at Scrooge and grabbing the straps of his bag. “You are the most infuriating, rude, presumptuous, frustrating ass I’ve ever-”

“And you’re nothin’ but a snake and a skirt, just tryin’ to ruin the lives of hard workers like me!”

The two of them screamed back and forth for a good thirty seconds before a sudden quake got their attention. They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment and then slowly turned towards the mountain above them.

In the hours they’d been traveling, the sun was finally starting to come up. Thanks to that, they could clearly see snow starting to tumble down from far up the mountain, gathering up as it tore down towards them.

Scrooge quickly grabbed Goldie’s wrist and pulled her down the path they were headed, not bothering to explain the obvious problem with them continuing to stand and fight where they were. That avalanche was huge and he wasn’t planning to have his life ended by something so stupid and pointless as a little bit of angry snow.

Goldie didn’t say anything as she ran along with him - though he had a good grip on her wrist, she still turned her hand over and grabbed his wrist as well, hoping that neither of them would let go. She wasn’t the slowest runner, but she didn’t think she could outrun an avalanche on her own.

It was a few minutes of running and loud crashing snow and rock before they could stop to catch their breath. They were both hyperventilating and Goldie was happy to know he wasn’t fairing too much better than her.

They simultaneously looked back at the path, then at each other. Their eyes locked for a moment as they continued to loudly inhale and exhale, but as soon as Scrooge glanced down at their still-connected hands, his breathing froze and he pulled himself out of her grip and turned away from her.

Goldie took a moment to absorb that and smirked. Despite all the yelling and insulting, he was clearly still attracted to her. She could probably use that to her advantage.

Though that didn’t change one very important thing: how the hell was she supposed to get back to Dawson? She looked up the path and saw it was completely blocked by all the snow and rocks, and during her walk she didn’t see any other way to get around the mountain. She looked over at Scrooge and glared.

“I sure hope there’s another way for me to get back, ‘cause I’m-”

“You’re what?!” Scrooge yelled, clearly very satisfied to interrupt her. He turned to glare at her again and poke her in the shoulder. “This is all your fault, you jeopardizin’ jumper! You shouldnae have followed me in the first place! This trek is dangerous and you’re just some dancehall girl! What was your plan here? Knock me out again and be on your way? You’ll not catch me off guard again, Goldie!"

She exhaled loudly and clenched her fists. "My plan was just to take a few days and prove to you how wrong you are about me, obviously I didn't plan on you yelling loudly enough to cause an avalanche! My saloon needs me! If I'm stuck out here in the middle of nowhere with you, everyone's gonna think I'm dead!" Goldie paced around in a circle while she yelled, thrashing her arms about. "It can’t be that long until the path clears, right? I can’t be stuck out here!”

Scrooge glared at her. “This is exactly what I mean! You don’t know a single thing about being out here doing real work! You really thought you could just come out here and find some gold in a few days? Either you’re plannin’ to cheat with magic or you just plain don’t know anything! This is dangerous and the path back to Dawson is going to be cut off for at least a month with all that snow!”

Goldie stared at him blankly, trying to collect her thoughts regarding his insults and the news about her being stuck. “A month?!”

“...is that really all you took away from that?!”

She glared. “You don’t know me, McDuck! I don’t care what you say about me, you can call me lazy and a liar and a cheat, but I’ll show you that Goldie O’Gilt is not someone to be trifled with! If I’m stuck here for a month, then I’m gonna use that month to be the best miner this side of Moosehide’s ever seen!”

Scrooge glared back at her and scoffed. “You’ve got nothin’ on Scrooge McDuck, you cocky conman. And I’m not givin’ you space at my claim! If you managed to dig up any gold out here, it’d be mine to keep!”

She pointed a thumb behind them. “Complain all you want, but it's not like we've got any other choice. Unless you plan on kidnapping me and keeping me locked up in your little tent, of course."

Scrooge glared at the avalanche aftermath behind her and huffed out a loud grump before finally turning around to continue his walk. He didn't have any interest in babysitting some spoiled lazy girl who would just whine the whole time she was there.

Unfortunately, his only other option at that point would be to leave her out in the cold and let her die. Though most people in Dawson would consider him a coldhearted guy, he wasn't that bad. (Well, maybe if it was Soapy he'd leave him to the elements. But Goldie wasn't Soapy, even if she was definitely working for him).

They hiked in silence for almost another hour before Goldie finally caught a glimpse of a small wooden cabin in the distance. She raised an eyebrow and turned towards the back of Scrooge's head. "I didn't realize you had a whole cabin out here. You build that all by yourself?"

"Of course I did," Scrooge scoffed, pointing his thumb to his sternum. "I'm Scrooge McDuck! Anythin’ I need done, I can get done!"

She didn't comment on that, storing the thought away for later when she'd need it more. The ol' sourdough thought he could do anything, hm? It'd be nice to take his nugget and prove him wrong about himself, too. He could say his name over and over, but that didn’t change the fact that he was just a man and she was the sneakiest thief in the entire Yukon. She thought back to her golden rule: if you wanna pick a pocket, you’ve gotta get close. She realized there was probably nothing closer than sharing such a small space for an entire month, but she’d have to pace herself.

Still walking in silence, they made their way into the cabin. Scrooge put his lantern down on the table, having already turned the light out as soon as the sun was high enough for them to see. Goldie noticed that he didn’t take off his coat and realized that it wasn’t much warmer inside than out.

A shiver ran up her spine and she hugged herself tightly. She knew miners weren’t living luxurious lives out in the wilderness, but she thought they’d at least have a little bit of warmth.

“You live here?”

Scrooge turned to glare at her, just a bit satisfied that he didn’t have to be the one to break the silence. During the last hour of their hike, he’d collected all of his embarrassment about having a woman live in his tiny one-bedroom cabin with him and completely thrown it out the window, focusing instead on keeping his deed and his gold safe from her grubby, thieving hands. “Hard workers like myself don’t get to live in cushy heated saloons. This is what you get,” he said angrily.

She huffed and looked around, putting her lantern down next to his. He shut hers off as well, immediately annoyed that she’d waste expensive oil by keeping it on. She saw a door and opened it to find a bedroom with one very small, shoddy-looking bed.

Not that she expected any different, but still. Goldie let out a quiet sigh and wondered if her ease around this man earlier was undeserved. Following him out to the middle of nowhere where she could scream as loud as possible and no one would hear her was definitely not her brightest idea.

“You can take the bed,” Scrooge offered with a shrug.

Surprised, Goldie turned around and stared at him. She just expected them to share it. “...and where are you going to sleep?”

“In the woodbin,” Scrooge mumbled, rustling through one of his bags.

“Oh,” she replied quietly, not sure what to say. She glanced at the bed, back at Scrooge, back to the bed again. If he was going to be a gentleman about this, she had no reason to question it, but there was a small part of her that wondered if he was just trying to get her guard down. He was rude and aggressive, but even when he had an opportunity to attack her earlier, he didn’t. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Alright, then.”

“Not that it matters now,” he continued, pulling out a pick-axe. “Since the day is just gettin’ started!”

“What?” Goldie exclaimed, hands on her hips. “I’ve been awake since six in the morning yesterday and then I spent all night hiking through a mountain! You can’t expect me to start digging without a break!”

Scrooge scoffed and looked at her over his shoulder. “I don’t expect you to do any hard work. You can stay inside, cookin’ and cleanin’, and that’ll be enough to pay off the rent of stayin’ in my cabin.”

“Wh…” Her mouth hung open and she clenched her fists at her side. “Excuse me?! I’m not going to sit here and be your little housewife, you sexist sourbelly!” She rushed towards him and grabbed the axe out of his hand before shoving it under his beak. “I’ll dig enough gold to cover my rent,” she spat at him angrily, “and then some!”

Scrooge watched quietly as she marched out his door, letting in some freezing cold air before it shut behind her. He scratched one of his cheeks and leaned down to grab his spare pick-axe. “I have a bad feelin’ about this…”

---

DAY ONE

Goldie had to physically restrain herself from whining. The work was exhausting, as she expected, and dirty and filthy and she was drenched in sweat, plus she was tired as hell considering she hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours, and she hadn’t found anything besides some little gold dust which amounted to basically nothing. But the worst part?

Scrooge was barely breaking a sweat.

It made her want to strangle him. She knew miners had to work themselves to the bone out in the wilderness, they talked about it enough and she’d gotten plenty familiar with their rough, calloused hands. But Mr. Hardworking McDuck was clearly going above and beyond. Whether he was always like that or just trying to show off and make her feel bad, she didn’t know, but she knew for a fact that no other miner in Dawson would be swinging their axe like that on exactly zero hours of sleep.

As much as she didn’t want to show any weakness in front of him, she could only do so much. And not only was she tired, she was desperately hungry. When was the last time she’d eaten? Probably right before her show the night before. She could still taste the potatoes and now she was stuck wondering if Scrooge had any food lying around or if he just ate whatever animal happened to wander nearby.

She glanced back at the cabin for the fifth time in under an hour and Scrooge finally spoke up, even though she was sure he hadn’t been looking at her.

“Feelin’ tired?” Scrooge asked smugly. “It’s only been six hours, O’Gilt. If you can’t handle that-”

“Oh like you aren’t hungry!” Goldie yelled, tossing her axe aside. “You haven’t had any food or drink since -”

“Since your coffee,” he finished, relishing the opportunity to remind her of what she did to him.

She shut her mouth and simply glared, reaching down to grab her axe again and get back to destroying every piece of rock in her path. Scrooge was a little impressed that she was stubborn enough to keep going, but he wasn’t impressed enough to stop so they could eat. Of course he was tired and hungry, but now that there were two mouths to feed, they’d need to skip lunch to make sure they had enough food to last the month. He wasn’t about to start killing innocent animals just because a thief decided to cause an avalanche.

Goldie grumbled as she continued to break rock after rock after rock. If she was trapped for a month, she’d have to work alongside him and keep herself alive until she found another opportunity to grab his gold. As much as she knew this was going to suck, she just had to keep going.

---

DAY TWO

Goldie was sore. She hadn’t been this sore in years, over a decade at least, and she didn’t miss the feeling. Her arms ached. Her legs ached. Her shoulders, her back, her stomach. Everything hurt like hell.

Scrooge woke up early and made coffee (if you could call it that) and breakfast (again, if you could call it that) and Goldie didn’t understand how he could be so energetic after spending a night sleeping on the floor. Instinctively, she assumed he had taken the mattress off the bed and dragged it over there with him, but then she thought...when would he have been able to do that? She was with him the whole time. There was no reason why it would’ve already been there.

Ignoring all that logic, Goldie swung open the door to the woodbin and found a sad looking pile of chopped wood and nothing else. Her bed was massively uncomfortable, but it was better than that, at least.

She didn’t want him to know how much her body was aching, so Goldie took a deep breath and made her way to the kitchen. She decided she’d suck it up and do whatever he did - eat what he ate, drink what he drank - and in a few days she’d get used to the workload. Her body had handled worse in the past, just because she’d had nice food and a cushy bed for the past few months didn’t mean she’d lost her edge.

Scrooge raised an eyebrow at her when she walked in. “You changed your hair?”

She followed his line of sight to her bangs and put a hand on her hip. “Do you think my hair did that on its own? I didn’t exactly pack my curlers, sourdough.”

He looked embarrassed for a moment and then turned back to his food, grumbling about how he didn’t understand womanly things.

Goldie took a seat next to him and rolled her eyes. “Your ma back home didn’t try any of her hair stuff on you?” She smirked and leaned forward, flicking at his bangs with her hand.

Scrooge quickly slapped her hand away from his face, angry at himself for blushing. “We didnae have the money for frivolities like that,” he grumbled. “And my sisters were too young for those kinds of things when I left.”

She leaned onto one hand. “Of course not,” she said semi-sarcastically. “How could the morally infallible miner come from anything but a poor, downtrodden family?”

He glared at her and Goldie realized that he was starting to understand her sarcasm. “And where does a thief come from? A family of thieves? Were you so spoiled as a child that you decided nothin’ was ever enough?”

Goldie raised an eyebrow at his significantly less-than-accurate assessment, sitting up and leaning against the back of her chair. “This thief comes from nowhere.”

Scrooge looked at her in confusion. “Well...you had to come from somewhere.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

Goldie picked at the feathers at the ends of her fingers, cleaning off some grime and matted ends, while Scrooge tried to figure out how she just ended the conversation like that. He wondered briefly if she had a reason to avoid giving him any personal information, or if she really just didn’t like to talk about it. Maybe Soapy told her not to say anything.

Either way, he stood up from the table and decided that Soapy Slick’s little lackey didn’t deserve anymore of his personal time. “Let’s get to work, Goldie.”

DEFINITIONS:
- sourbelly: a disagreeable sourdough or old-timer

REAL HISTORY FACTS:
- Technically Scrooge is right, any gold that Goldie dug up on his claim would be legally his

DUCK FRANCHISE REFERENCES:
- I did research on the distance from Dawson City to Moosehide Mountain but really I was basing the time distances off of times mentioned in the comics lol it's fine
- Scrooge and Goldie's comic origin involves him kidnapping her after she steals from him, so he can teach her the meaning of hard work. It's patronizing and ignorant of the lives of women in the Klondike BUT it's fine. I changed things up to make Scrooge less creepy
- They lived together for a month and Scrooge did sleep in the woodbin during that month. Gentlemanly!
- I made a lil reference to a scene from the DT87 episode "Back to the Klondike." Goldie shoves an axe under Scrooge's chin and tells him that she's better than he thinks. It's cute.