o.o.o.o.o

His nephew should be very thankful his glares couldn't kill a person, as rumours used to say they could do when Scrooge was younger. Nevermind the fact his glares never seemed to have had much of an effect on Donald either way, which was something Scrooge found very unfortunate at the moment, but Donald was a fool if he thought Scrooge would agree to such an idiotic suggestion.

"No, absolutely not!" Scrooge growled in an attempt to warn Donald to not push the issue.

"Oh, really?" Donald replied sceptically with sarcasm dripping from his every word. "Then how exactly do you suggest we get down from the mountain and back to the others again?"

"I'll walk down by myself, of course," Scrooge snapped back heatedly, ignoring Donald's sarcasm. "A small sprain isn't going to stop Scrooge McDuck from walking down this wee-hill!"

Donald clenched his eyes shut with a clearly annoyed groan.

"This so called "hill" is a 3000 meters tall mountain which we already have climbed half-way to the top of, and for your information that's clearly not just a sprain! Even an idiot can see your foot is broken!" Donald shouted and threw up his hands in the air in frustration.

"Don't get yer' knickers in a twist or use that tone of voice towards me!"

"I couldn't care less about the tone I use since you still after all these years seem to be a stubborn idiot!"

"Oh, and that's coming from the right person!?"

"At least I'm not refusing to be carried down the mountain when I have a broken foot!"

"It's not broken, ye' nitpick! I'll have ye' know in my days in Klondike I used to fall down far worse heights than-!"

"Yes, of course! Because it's not like that is exaggerated at all or was at least a 100 years ago when your body actually was young enough to be able to take these kinds of falls!"

"I told ye' to stop using that kind of voice towards me!"

"It's not like I only minutes ago had to splint your ankle just so the entire foot wouldn't be bent in the wrong direction either, but what do I know about medicine? As always you know best, Mr. McDuck!" Donald heatedly continued, completely ignoring his uncle's words.

"ENOUGH!"

With both of them breathing heavily in anger Donald finally stopped his rant, but that still didn't stop Donald's furious glare which was met with a just as angry glare from himself.

"You have two options to choose between while I re-pack our bags," Donald whispered harshly, bending down to stand neb to neb with the still sitting Scrooge, while Donald obviously battled with himself to not completely lose his temper.
"Either I give you a piggy-back down the mountain, or I'm going to carry you down like a sack of potatoes. Your choice."

It was probably a good thing Donald then promptly spun around and stomped off to the other side of the ledge to pack down the first-aid kit into the bag again, because otherwise Scrooge suspected it would only have been a matter of time before one of them said something they would regret.

'I suppose Donald still has some of that famous McDuck-temper after all,' Scrooge thought to himself with mixed relief and annoyance.
'Almost thought he lost it after...'

Shaking away his thoughts of lost family members Scrooge's ears suddenly noticed a low rumbling noise above them, and to Scrooge's dread it only seemed to become louder and louder. Despite already suspecting what it would be Scrooge's shifted his gaze and followed the rest of mountain above them with his eyes.

"Donald, we need to get away from here!"

"Oh, so you've finally made up your mind?" Donald muttered loudly with his back still against Scrooge and secured one of the bags onto his back.
"About time."

"No, we need to get away from here now – there is an avalanche coming our way!"

Donald's head snapped around so fast Scrooge almost thought he would hurt his neck – looking up the mountain, the incoming avalanche and then back to Scrooge. The anger on Donald's face was quickly changed into a fear-mixed annoyance, and without warning Donald was suddenly in front of Scrooge and had lifted him up in bridal style. There was no way they would be able to climb down to safety in time, nor were there enough space to escape the avalanche from one of the sides, and so in true McDuck-fashion Donald gave an old tree trunk on the edge of the ledge a swift kick. Without further warning Donald jumped on top of the fallen tree trunk and then they were surfing down the mountain with a furious speed. If anyone asked Scrooge later he would deny to his dying breath he ever grabbed a tighter hold of Donald during the ride down.

"FASTER!" Scrooge roared over the deafening sound of the fast approaching avalanche.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK I'M TRYING TO DO? SLOW DOWN!?"

"CONSIDERING HOW LITTLE YE' FOCUS ON ACTUALLY GOING FASTER, YES!"

"I WOULD BE ABLE TO FOCUS ON GOING FASTER IF YOU STOPPED SCREAMING AT ME!"

"I'M NOT SCREAMING!"

"OH, THEN WHAT ARE YOU CALLING THIS, EXACTLY!?"

Scrooge didn't get the chance to tell Donald what exactly he considered it to be, because the next moment they were both shrieking loudly as they went flying through the air in different directions. Neither Donald nor Scrooge had noticed the rock sticking up from the snow, but their tree trunk definitely did when it crashed into the rock and was smashed into pieces. With barely enough time to process what just had happened Scrooge soon found himself in the middle of spinning white and ear deafening noise. It felt like it continued forever, but slowly but surely Scrooge felt the snow around him slow down. Reacting purely on muscle memory Scrooge began to make a swimming motion in the snow surrounding him and spat out saliva to check which way was up. Feeling the saliva begin to trickle up his neb Scrooge managed to spin his body around and begin to swim towards the surface.

If Scrooge had been a human swimming in the snow it would probably have proven to be much more difficult, but now it didn't take too long before he could feel his hand break the surface. In the end it turned out he hadn't been very deep down in the snow to begin with either. With a mix between a swimming stroke and heaving himself up he then managed to let his head break the surface, and after that it was only a matter of continuing to swim and wait out the avalanche.

The moment the snow stopped moving Scrooge quickly heaved up the rest of his body on top of the snow, and with a sigh of relief - (he survived!) - Scrooge laid down on his back and allowed himself just to breathe for a few seconds. He couldn't afford to do it for long though, and with the help of the trusty cane he never had lost his hold of Scrooge managed to stand up. Donald was nowhere to be seen.

"Donald!"

The shout sounded weak to his ears, but perhaps that was just because it felt like his ears were filled with cotton.

"DONALD!"

Not hearing any answer Scrooge had to fight down the rising panic in his chest. 'He's okay, the lad is fine.'
Scrooge had made sure all the children, Donald and Launchpad knew what to do in case of an avalanche before they left for the mountain.

"DONALD, ANSWER ME!"

Scrooge slowly began to limp forward with the help of his cane, ignoring his foot which by now screamed for him to stop, at the same time as he opened the buttoned pocket of his jacket and fished out an avalanche beacon. It was Donald who had insisted all of them should have an avalanche beacon each – the children and Launchpad included - and right now Scrooge was glad it was a fight Donald had won. He immediately clicked the button and changed the avalanche beacon into 'receiving mode', and Scrooge was thankful for immediately getting a signal from his right side. Moving towards the signal as fast as he could Scrooge then carefully tried to keep his eyes open after anything which could tell him where Donald was. Time was of essence – he didn't know how much air Donald would have wherever he was.

When his avalanche beacon signalled he was getting closer to the signal Scrooge was reminded Donald had been the only one with a bag at the moment of the avalanche. Right now Scrooge therefore didn't have any other equipment than the few things in his pockets, so he could only pray Donald would be near the surface and not require any deep digging to rescue. Because of course Donald was still alive. The lad was always alright in the end, no matter what happened. He had to be. However... It was so easy for an accident to happen though. A piece of ice, a rock or something else could easily have hit Donald's head or crushe- NO! Scrooge shook away his negative thoughts.

'He's fine, the lad is tougher than most people give him credit for,' Scrooge reminded himself quietly.

However just in case Scrooge sped up his pace even more, ignoring the painful protests of his foot. When Scrooge finally reached the point where the signal was the strongest he didn't waste any time and immediately laid down flat in the snow in an attempt to hear Donald below the snow.

"DONALD, DO YOU HEAR ME?"

Perhaps it was just Scrooge's imagination, but it sounded like he received a low groan in answer, so without wasting any time Scrooge sat up again and carefully wiggled his cane downwards in the snow until it hit something soft but alive. Donald. Having confirmed where Donald was Scrooge began to dig as fast as he could. To Scrooge's relief it didn't take too long, even though he only had his hands to dig with, to reach one of Donald's blue gloved hands. However Scrooge's priority was to uncover Donald's head, to make sure the lad could breathe, and so he continued to dig with renewed energy. After what felt like a painfully long time Scrooge then finally found the beginning of Donald's neb, and after that it didn't take Scrooge too long before he had uncovered Donald's entire head and throat. Though Donald was unconscious Scrooge was relieved to see Donald still seemed to be breathing normally, and so Scrooge didn't spare any time in attempting to wake him up.

"Donald, lad, can you hear me?" Scrooge asked and lightly tapped Donald's cheek in an attempt to wake him up.

At first the only answer Scrooge received was a groan and Donald's eyes slowly fluttering open, but at least he had responded. Scrooge could work with that.

"I need you to focus a little, Don. Does yer back or neck hurt?"

Scrooge didn't even realise he had used Donald's old pet name before it was too late to take it back, but he was rewarded with Donald opening his neb to speak.

"Unca Scrooge, where's the kids? Are they alright?" Donald croaked out.

'Of course, I shouldn't have expected anything else to be the first thing on Donald's mind,' Scrooge thought with an annoyance-mixed fondness.

"The little tykes are fine. They should already be at the base of the mountain with Launchpad by now, if not even already in the air inside the plane to find us. They were never near the avalanche," Scrooge reminded him with a fond roll of his eyes.
"I still need ye' to answer the question though. Did ye' hurt yer neck or back?"

"No, nothing hurts more than I expected it would," Donald grunted back in answer with a small shake of his head, as if to clear it.

"Well, looks there's some McDuck-blood running through yer veins after all then," Scrooge joked with a chuckle and carefully re-started his efforts to dig out Donald from the snow.

"Harr-harr, very funny," Donald replied with a tired sarcasm coating his voice.

Now when he was sure Donald no longer was in any danger of suffocating from lack of oxygen Scrooge dug much slower and carefully than before, in order to make sure Donald truly wasn't injured anywhere. Donald was, after all, part McDuck - and Scrooge knew Donald had inherited both his mother's and father's stubbornness. It was slow work to dig out Donald from the snow, but once he had freed Donald's upper body Scrooge was also able to reach Donald's backpack and thankfully find one of the small shovels they had brought with them. With Donald's upper body and arms free it also made it possible for Donald to help with the digging until he could heave himself up from the hole and onto the surface of the snow. It had taken a lot of effort for both of them though, and it was no wonder they had to lay down for a moment and pant in exhaustion before any of them were ready to discuss their situation.

"What... do we do now?"

Scrooge grumbled into the snow, not sure if he wanted to answer Donald's question even though he knew he would have no choice.

"We'll have to climb down to the base of the mountain and find the others."

Scrooge pretended not to see Donald's sceptical brow.

"Why do we not just radio them to come and get us with the plane?"

"Because even if the radio still works I'm not going to risk Launchpad crashing into the mountain and starting a new avalanche," Scrooge told him bluntly and sat up in the snow.

"Fine, point taken," Donald admitted with a sigh and carefully stood up and stretched.

Without another word Donald then moved his backpack to his stomach before he stepped up in front of Scrooge, turned around and knelt down in the snow with his back towards Scrooge.

"What are ye' doing?" Scrooge asked him with eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Don't deny your foot it hurting more than ever," Donald sighed tiredly. "Just hop on already so I can carry you down the mountain, ol' man."

Deciding it wasn't worth the argument Scrooge reluctantly took hold of Donald's shoulder and heaved himself up on Donald's back and felt Donald grab his legs to hold him steady.

"The second we can see the plane you will let me down to walk by myself," Scrooge warned in a grumble.

"Whatever you say, ol' man."

Scrooge didn't need to see Donald's face to know he was rolling his eyes, but for now he decided to let it go. Almost.

"Another eye-roll and I'll make ye' pay for the bag with equipment ye' lost," Scrooge told him as Donald stood up.

Donald groaned in protest, but didn't give Scrooge the satisfaction of an actual answer. Though Donald couldn't see his uncle's face Scrooge gave Donald a small smile, and as Donald began to walk in a steady pace down the mountain Scrooge allowed himself to relax against Donald's back.

'See? Told ye' he would be fine,' Scrooge thought to himself with a satisfied smile. 'My boy will always turn out fine.'

o.o.o.o.o

The End

o.o.o.o.o

Hi guys, what do you think about this One-Shot? I sure had fun writing this, at least. I love my two idiots... xD
This fanfiction turned out longer than I originally intended it to be, but oh well. Might as well run with the inspiration when it hits, right? xD

IMPORTANT NOTE! I am NOT trained nor educated on what to do in case of an avalanche.
All information mentioned about avalanches in the story is information I've found online.
On top of that I also altered some of the information to better match with ducks' lower weight and differently shaped bodies, compared to humans.

If you are traveling in an area with avalanche warnings, please make sure you've made research beforehand on what to do in case of an avalanche!

Anyway, I hope you liked this fanfiction, because I sure enjoyed to write it. Please tell me what you think! :D

/Jezzica