"Are you going to be this twitchy all day?" Astrid asked testily, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.

Hiccup giggled sheepishly. "Um, yeah. I'm on street duty for the first time since I got my badge, I've had no combat training, and I…all right, I'm terrified of screwing up in front of you. I will probably be twitchy until further notice."

Astrid looked at Hiccup (who went white). "So what, part of it's me?"

"A lot of it's you, and keep your eyes on the road!"

Great. Her partner was a nervous passenger. She rolled her eyes back to the street. "I know what I'm doing."

"I don't. This is all foreign ground to me."

They drove in silence for a little while.

Actually, Astrid had had worse team members. After ten minutes Fisher had her looking for a muzzle, the twins had her looking for leashes – or straitjackets – and Scott had her looking for both. Hiccup was willing to follow her lead and was disinclined to take chances. He was also honest: he made sure she knew his weaknesses as well as his strengths before they even left the building.

She'd taken him to the shooting range before they hit the road, and after...demonstrating…how the scoring system worked, she gave him a gun and told him to "give it a shot." All right, she'd been trying to intimidate him a little: her accuracy percentage was well up in the nineties, all hitting the human cutout in the approximate location of the heart. He got the message, too – and then proceeded to shock her by firing his bullets right through the holes that her shots had left. Astrid hadn't believed it at first, and called up a new target. She had to concede his skill the second time, though, when he drilled all six shots right through the heart with bare millimeters to spare between them. If his accuracy percentage wasn't an even hundred, it was damned close; the boy could score headshots.

Astrid would gladly let Hiccup supply cover fire for her in a hostile situation. If that kind of skill could be transferred from a controlled environment to an uncontrolled one, he wouldn't accidentally shoot her.

"Do we have a game plan for catching the Night Fury?" Hiccup finally asked.

Astrid sighed. "Not really." Then she looked sharply at Hiccup. "I trust you have some bright ideas?"

Hiccup went absolutely rigid, staring out the windshield as though expecting to see Doom bearing down on them. With another sigh Astrid returned her eyes to the road. Presently, as nothing happened, he answered her question.

"Well, we obviously can't tackle him the way we tackle other weredragons."

"Obviously." Astrid was sorely tempted to look at Hiccup again, since it clearly freaked him out when she took her eyes off the road. She resisted, though. "He'll just fly out of any traps we set."

"Well, or simply avoid them." Hiccup shrugged. "He's intelligent, isn't he?"

Astrid almost looked at him again just on principle; there was something odd about the way he said that. Not wanting him to freeze up again before he answered her, though, she just cut her eyes at him. "You seem to think he wouldn't flap out of traps."

Hiccup smirked at her phrasing before sobering again. "It's…Fisher told me about the Night Fury's MO, and I thought it was…interesting."

Astrid stopped at a red light and looked at Hiccup. "Which part?"

Hiccup looked back. "The part where nobody has ever seen or heard him fly in from anywhere. He dive-bombs off of skyscrapers, and then shoots off in random directions that don't include back up. That's the act of a glider, not someone or something capable of true flight."

Astrid thought about that. He had a point; the Night Fury's so-called "flight path" always took the shape of an L. It wasn't really flying – just falling out of the sky, and then gliding to a safe place well away from where people were shooting.

"Green light," Hiccup added.

Automatically she put her foot on the gas pedal. "So about the only way we could trap the Night Fury would be to station guards on all the nearby rooftops, or set up a snare-launcher aimed at his turning point." Astrid contemplated that idea wistfully before shaking her head. "Not possible. We don't have the manpower or the equipment to pull either of those off; certainly not during the kind of situation he decides to show his face. Anything more useful to offer?"

"Did Fisher tell you about his first brush with the Night Fury?"

Astrid snorted. "Sure – he told everyone who would listen. I think he even wrote 'the Night Fury can talk and it knew my name' in his report to the chief. Why?"

"I was just thinking that if the Night Fury could talk – intelligently – and have respect and consideration for the police force, we might be able to bargain with him."

"What?"

The car lurched into a parking space and slammed to a halt.

Hiccup gave himself a little shake. "Next time, I'm driving." He took a deep breath. "But no, I'm not kidding. We know pathetically little about weredragons in general; I checked the records myself. If we learn things from the Night Fury that are effective against other dragons, we'll be able to stop the raids much faster and with fewer losses. If we can stop the raids easier, Helheim's Gate will either go away or send so many dragons that we can calculate their origin. If they leave, we're done; if we can find them, we can bring them down and then we'll be done. Think of it: a time of relative peace, where the only criminals we have to bring down are humans of normal strength and speed."

Astrid looked askance at Hiccup. "We're supposed to bring down the Night Fury here."

"Yeah, I know, I'm just…I think we can convince the Night Fury to let us analyze him by offering a trade."

"What trade?"

"Alliance. Legitimacy. Political asylum. Whatever term you prefer." Hiccup gestured earnestly. "If we really can use anything we learn against the other dragons, we can register him as a kind of informant or even legal backup. If the department acknowledges him as something like that, he might just walk right in with news for us someday."

Astrid stared at Hiccup in amazement. "You're naïve, you know that? Why would the department acknowledge him as anything other than a threat to be eliminated?"

"If the chief accepts it, the others will fall into line."

"So why would the chief accept it?"

Hiccup sighed. "He wouldn't be happy about it," he admitted. "But…he's not so stubborn that he'll just throw away a source of info."

Astrid decided that she would have an easier time getting behind this idea if Hiccup sounded less like he was praying about his dad's stubbornness issues. "We'll get back to that. How about the Night Fury? What makes you so sure he'd go with it?"

Hiccup shrugged as broadly as the confines of the car would allow. "Put yourself in his skin. Everybody on both sides is shooting at him, and he doesn't want to join the dragons for some reason. Maybe he still considers himself human; maybe he just likes the underdogs. Regardless, if the humans are offering to stop shooting at him in exchange for a little information…well, wouldn't you jump at the chance?"

"I would be extremely suspicious. Where's my guarantee that the info I provide won't then be used against me? In fact, how would I know that I won't simply be shot after sharing?"

"Put yourself in his skin," Hiccup repeated with a sigh. "He's a weredragon, even if it's not one we really recognize. We know he's armed with the most explosive, destructive firepower known to dragons, and he must have some pretty incredible senses to make those well-timed entrances. If you were endowed with powers like that, wouldn't you notice if the person you were talking to was about to pull out a weapon, and retaliate?"

Astrid conceded the point with a shrug and a noncommittal sound. She was sure enough of her skills without dragon powers that she would bet her life on catching betrayal with time to react.

"So he wouldn't worry about being shot after he gives his information. As for the other…if he really, really thought that his information would be used against him, he would probably leave. Sure save us the trouble of keeping him in jail, and no wasted bullets."

There was just one more problem with this idea…

"How did you plan to contact him? Nobody knows where he lairs by day; there's no predicting when and where a Night Fury-attracting crime is going to take place, so there's no predicting when and where he's going to show up."

Hiccup shrugged. "Well, that's why we're going to observe the Night Fury; maybe there's a way to get a message to him that doesn't require knowing where he is. Heck, if his hearing's good enough we could broadcast something on a frequency dogs can hear."

Astrid shook her head with a sigh. Then she smirked. "Hey, I've got an idea."

Hiccup eyed her warily. "If it involves shooting something that has not acted against us, I'd rather pass."

"I'm not going to kill him! And yes, I read the report – I know trackers don't work." It had been tried before. Cops had successfully hit the Night Fury with bullets that sent out homing signals; the bullets were always found again, wiped clean and left in alleys within a block of the incident where he was shot with them. "I was thinking more like a message in a bottle. Well, in a bullet."

Hiccup paused. "You know…that could work. He cleans the bullets before he leaves them where there's even a chance of someone finding them, he would surely notice if one could open. You'd run the risk of his being resentful of you afterwards, though, whether he accepts the invite or not."

"Tough. He's the one playing hard-to-get." Astrid pulled back out onto the road.

"When we get back to headquarters I'll work on a hollow shell."

Operation Gun-Mail surpassed all expectations.

The Night Fury's next appearance was during a dragon raid. Hiccup had absolutely refused to leave headquarters while there were dragons charging around, and no amount of threatening could lodge him; so Astrid was the one lurking by the cars listening intently for the telltale scream, armed with a gun that looked a bit like a drastically-miniaturized rocket launcher – with just one shot.

The note stuffed in the shell was very simply worded: I just want to talk. Meet me at 2100 hours in the old station on Fifth. The "station" was a gas station that had been abandoned for years, so far out on the fringes that not even hoboes lurked there for fear of weredragons. It was isolated enough that the Night Fury would feel comfortable revealing himself, although Astrid refused to go there unarmed.

"I don't know this Night Fury. I don't know if he'll defend me or run for his life if other weredragons show up, and I want lethal force."

The raid had been in full swing for almost twenty minutes before Astrid heard the scream. She jumped up on the hood of the car she'd been hiding behind, bringing the gun up and releasing the safety. Then she waited for the explosion that marked the change in direction. There was no guarantee that he would come this direction, of course – but Astrid preferred the act of pulling a trigger far more than sitting around waiting for sensor equipment to give her a reading, and would take the shot whenever it presented itself.

Luck, or the gods, were with her that night. When the dark shape caught wing on its own explosion, it shot practically right towards her – a massive humanoid silhouette with wings. Reflexively she brought her gun up, allowed for her target's speed and any wind resistance, and pulled the trigger.

The shadow screamed and veered off-kilter, one of its legs catching up as if in pain.

Astrid felt a surprising twinge of guilt at having wounded the beast – but also a sense of triumph that she'd successfully delivered her message, and relief that she'd hit exactly what she'd been aiming at. Or near-exactly. She'd been aiming for the middle of his left thigh as a safe spot, but couldn't tell by the shadow's movements if that was where she hit. All she was sure of was that if she'd erred, it was low rather than high.

Several other officers, having heard the second scream and recognized "someone actually hit the Night Fury," took off in hot pursuit. Astrid couldn't bring herself to be worried about someone stealing her case, though – the Night Fury either had remarkable healing properties or enough sense to apply pressure to an open wound, because it never left a blood trail to follow.

The next morning Astrid was bubbling over with excitement as she rushed to her desk.

Astrid. The model of the cop's professional attitude.

Excited like a little kid who had just won the biggest prize at a carnival game.

Most of the senior officers shook their heads, thinking that it was because she'd wounded the Night Fury and perhaps had landed a tracker on it. They were sure she would erupt the minute she realized that the tracker hadn't worked, and were laying bets about if she would throw the tantrum at the office or at home (or anywhere in between that wasn't work and wasn't strictly private).

Astrid heard them discussing it and was amused at how they were half-right about her reasons.

Hiccup was already at their desk space, moving things around. He looked a little pale and seemed more withdrawn than usual, but Astrid was too interested in her success to think anything of it.

"I got him!" she announced, swiping one of the coffee cups off the desk and gulping half of it down. Then she grimaced at it slightly. "Too much cream."

Hiccup smiled wryly. "That one was mine." He nodded at the other cup, which was actually on the coaster by her computer. "I remember how you like your coffee."

"Oh never mind, I'll buy you another one." Swinging into her chair, she took the tops off both cups and topped Hiccup's coffee back up with her own before taking another drink.

"Really, coffee on you? Somebody's in a good mood; you're not usually…generous."

Astrid contemplated the cup. "Do you think he got it?"

"The message? I'm sure he did. Of course, you'll know for sure that he got it and understood if he shows up tonight at the designated time and place."

"I'll know?" Not that Astrid had any objection to taking all the thunder for herself, but she and Hiccup were supposed to be a team. If she'd thought about the meeting tonight at all (and she hadn't), it was that she and her partner would meet the Night Fury together.

"I'm not in fighting condition, and the earthbound dragons terrify me. If other dragons do show up, especially if there are Monstrous Nightmares, you'd be babysitting me and we'd probably both be killed unless the Night Fury decided to step in."

Astrid paused and looked at Hiccup, finally noting the color of his face. He'd made a remark before about not wrestling a Nightmare, but she'd thought then that it was because of common sense: they could set themselves on fire. Now…she was beginning to think there was a hard-core phobia going on.

Which was odd.

"Just curious, why especially Nightmares? I'm not arguing that they're the most horrible of the lot, but not by that much."

"I…" Hiccup swallowed, his expression twisting into a bitter display of fear, loathing, and resentment. His next words were a mutter. "I'm not going to take it out on my partner."

Astrid cocked an eyebrow. "You're incapable of shocking or offending me. Whatever it is, just say it; get it out of your system."

Hiccup glared at her. Not like she was personally to blame for his problem; more like she was one of a much larger entity that was responsible. Then he shrugged out of his coat, swiveled towards her, and proceeded to roll up his sleeves as far as they would go and his pant legs to the knee.

She'd thought she couldn't be shocked. She was wrong.

She hadn't even known he had scars.

A few were cuts; most were puncture wounds. Some were perfectly round, a straight stab, and others were more almond-shaped as though the claw that caused them had gone out a different angle than it had gone in. A few had a weird texture, like they'd been infected for a while before finally healing. And there were so many of them.

"What on earth?" she gasped, raising her eyes to stare at his face.

Hiccup smirked a bit. Obviously he could tell that she had in fact been shocked. "And these are just the ones I can show you. You'll have to take my word for the others, because I'm not stripping here."

"You have more of them?" Astrid couldn't believe it. "How…what…"

"Monstrous Nightmare." Hiccup covered the scars again. "It took a week to recover from what he did to me. One. Whole. Week. When I couldn't come in to work for the pain of it."

"There was a week when you…" suddenly Astrid stopped, realizing why Hiccup glared at her a minute ago and why his face had been so resentful.

It was in her own half-finished question.

He'd vanished for a week, and she hadn't noticed. Had anyone?

"When?" she whispered guiltily.

Hiccup's expression relaxed. "Two months ago…almost three, now. And they still sometimes act up a bit – like right now there's one that's really sore…" he absently rubbed his thigh, "…so I can't run very well." Some of the resentment flickered in his eyes again, but he managed to keep it out of his voice – sort of – when he spoke again. "And to answer your other question, Gob and Fisher both noticed that I was gone, but they just assumed that my dad temporarily reassigned me somewhere."

Few noticed. Nobody missed him. Nobody cared.

Expendable.

No wonder he was so angry. And hurt.

"I…" Astrid paused. What on earth could she say? She couldn't defend herself not missing him: she didn't remember what she'd been doing two to three months ago, that she'd been too busy to notice the presence or absence of a lab rat. She couldn't offer to "leave him home" on days when his scars caused him pain, because the chief would notice and be on both their backs. Daddy was determined that his son get some field experience.

I understand? Understand what? Being overlooked? She never was. Being injured? Simply put, she'd never been injured so badly that she needed a week to recover; not since she was a little girl and sprained her wrist, and that didn't hold a candle to being worked over by weredragon claws.

Hiccup shrugged. "Could have been worse: he could have spewed fire all over me." He turned back to the computer.

The tension between them was thick and heavy. Astrid felt like she'd broken something, and she wasn't sure what. So she did the only thing she could think of to patch things: she drained her accidentally-purloined cup, and went to buy Hiccup a replacement coffee.

It took a few minutes of careful doctoring and tasting before she was sure she had it right.

Hiccup looked irritated at her attention-demanding jab, but his expression melted into pleased surprise when she waved the new cup in his face. "Thank you."

"Listen…" Astrid gently rubbed the place where her fist connected, "I can't leave you at the office while you're still my partner. But you just let me know if those injuries are bothering you in a way that impedes field work, and I'll let you wait in the car. Just don't make things up to get out of active participation, all right? Not wanting to leave the lab doesn't give you the right to lie."

Hiccup smiled. "Thanks. And don't worry, I wouldn't lie to you about my injuries."

It was what Astrid had hoped to hear – and yet the tension was only weakened, not broken. A few minutes later while reviewing some of the cases on file, she realized why.

I wouldn't lie to you about my injuries was itself a lie – though not one of his usual terribly-obvious lies. She actually believed he wouldn't make up a painful old injury just to get out of field duty, so that was true…but he would tell other lies about what had happened to him.

The flash of clarity was blinding: he already had. Some of the marks on him looked more recent than almost-three-months – in fact, the ones that she'd thought were infected were actually almost new.

But he'd been telling the truth about being hurt badly enough by a Monstrous Nightmare that he was laid up for a week, she was sure of it…

Wait a minute, he never actually said "A Nightmare put these marks on me." He implied, and I assumed. She'd been too shocked by the scars, and too guilty that she hadn't missed him, to really think about what he was telling her.

She almost said something. She almost turned in her seat, wrapped her hands around Hiccup's neck, and demanded that he tell her what exactly the Nightmare had done that forced him to spend a week recuperating.

For the first time in her life, her nerve failed her. The bitter expression that had been the first answer to "why especially Monstrous Nightmares" was burned into her mind. He was not ready to talk about whatever had happened in that week – seven days when the entire force demonstrated for him that he was completely expendable.

Something occurred to her – something she'd seen in Hiccup's profile and thought odd, and had meant to ask about but never quite got around to it. She called it up on her monitor and read it again – the whole profile this time, not just the highlights.

He'd had hardly anything, good or bad, attached to his name right up until…two and three-quarters months ago. Then – well, whoever wrote the profile noticed his absence: he had a work week labelled AWOL. Then he returned to the forensics lab…and turned into a reclusive workaholic, cracking cold cases by analyzing data.

Staring at her partner's history in black and white, thinking about that hurt resentment, Astrid knew what was going on: Hiccup had taken a terrible blow to his pride and was now trying to build himself back up and prove that he was a credit to the force. But it was a Sisyphean task – how many cases, cold or current, did he have to solve to prove anything? Especially with the general attitude this force had about forensics…he could be working for the rest of his life and never be acknowledged, forever unsung.

No, I won't press him for answers about that Monstrous Nightmare. I'll value what he offers, and show him I value his contributions, and help him stop this endless pursuit of justification. Then I'll demand truthful answers about those scars.

"See anything interesting?"

Astrid jumped slightly and looked at Hiccup, who was watching her intently. Words tumbled over themselves in their haste to get to her mouth, but she firmly kept silent; she wasn't going to apologize for, or justify, wanting to know more about her partner, and she certainly wasn't going to babble like an idiot. She considered – briefly – telling him that she found him valuable, but the words were so odd that she couldn't imagine what he would think.

He'd asked a question, right? Was it rhetorical or did he expect a reply? She couldn't remember exactly what the question was, only the ironic and self-deprecating tone.

Had he started self-pitying? The wuss.

"I'd tell you exactly what I think," she finally replied, a little chill but not altogether unkindly, "But I know what your answer would be. 'Talk is cheap, you'll say anything to further the cause whether you believe it or not…' No, my words will keep until you're ready to really listen."

Hiccup didn't quite gape, but his eyes got huge. Then he smirked. "I do not sound like that."

Finally, the tension was broken.