Hard Knocks

A/N: Wellllll, this is my newest chapter? It features an OC and some awkward Stoick/Hiccup haha xD Anyway, in rereading this fic and giving it a lot of thought, I realize that this story conspicuously lacks Annie's key components, and not only that, but does not carry what I intended it to, either. I intended this story, at its birth, to be cute. I wanted it to be a cute, charming but also slightly angsty and heartwarming fic, and...it's not. It's not cute. Or charming. Or heartwarming. And that's what I wanted it to be.

Thank you?

Stoick frowned, momentarily terribly confused. Thank you? For what? Driving him across town? Saving him a lot of walking when that was what a normal, everyday person would do, whether they were running for mayor and trying to look good in the polls or not. He hadn't done anything to warrant such warmly spoken words from the boy and wasn't quite sure how to respond. Yet even as silence threatened to descend upon them once more, Hiccup quickly broke it, tearing his gaze away from the window and bringing it back to the man. "Hey, do you have a shower here?"

"Huh?" The man blinked. Where did the kid get this stuff? "No, I shower in the puddles of rainwater and melted snow you see outside." He was gratified that the boy looked slightly put out and mildly embarrassed. "Of course I have a shower."

Freckled cheeks flushed, Hiccup was nonetheless determined. "Well, can I take a shower, then?"

"You don't need my permission. Go." He tilted his head in the direction of the stairs. "But I'm leaving for work in a few minutes, so you'll be alone here. Will you be okay with that?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine." Hiccup slid out of his chair, before a new thought apparently occurred to him, and he turned swiftly back to the table. "Wait, if I'm going to shower, can I borrow one of your towels?"

"That…kind of comes with the shower, don't you think?"

"Just checking. Thanks." And, like the conversation hadn't just taken a very weird turn, Hiccup turned and scampered up the stairs. Stoick could hear his sneakers pounding on each step.

Contrary to Stoick's new belief, Hiccup did not prize hygiene, at least not particularly. It was just that he hadn't been able to shower for six days and counting and he really, really didn't want there to be a seventh – as a result, it felt good to step under the warm spray and let the water hit his skin, watching it wash away the layers of dirt and dried sweat that had accumulated there. After seven straight days of cleaning and very little else, these last twenty-four hours felt completely surreal…or maybe that was just how tired he was.

A seed of guilt planted itself slowly in Hiccup's mind – he was here, in a nice apartment, with the mayor-to-be and while there was nothing even akin to affection between them, the man was nice enough. He was a decent man. He had provided Hiccup food all last week, and he'd offered to do the same for however long the boy stayed here. He had given him a nice room, in a nice apartment complex, in a nice part of town, and was letting him shower in a nice bathroom. The other boys in the orphanage were still toiling under the controlling thumb of Mrs. Cambridge, denied every single good thing Hiccup currently held. So, with guilt chewing slightly at the edges of his mind, the boy did not take long in the shower.

Turning off the taps, he heard the unmistakable sound of the apartment door slamming shut, letting him know that he was now alone. Grabbing up his towel and beginning to dry off, Hiccup tried to think of what he would do today, but he was at something of a loss. Pre-Mrs. Cambridge, he would have spent the day playing with Gustav. Post-Mrs. Cambridge? He would have cleaned all day. And to be fair, he could have cleaned the apartment. Heaven knew the place needed it. But if you weighed work against leisure, there could be no question about where the hammer would fall. Besides, he didn't technically need Mr. Maddox to see Gustav. It was true that the man's offer would save him a lot of walking, but the man was probably already long gone by now, so he would just walk the few extra miles.

With this thought in mind, he pulled on his clothes – never mind that they were the ones he'd been wearing the previous night, he had nothing else to change into – and grabbed up the oversized brown jacket, slinging it over his shoulders. Seeing Gustav was a good idea. It would help ease his mind about how his friend was faring, and he would get a chance to see how the other boys were doing as well. No one deserved Mrs. Cambridge.

Decision made, he left the apartment.

But it didn't take long for him to regret this decision. Walking slightly hunched, trudging through ankle-deep snow, arms wrapped around himself to lock in heat as his thin jacket certainly didn't provide any, he became aware that people on the street were looking at him. Ordinarily, this would not have been a particularly upsetting thing. After all, you couldn't really avoid people looking at you. Most people looked at him, though, with contempt and derision. Certainly not…whatever that emotion was, though it sounded nice. And was there a bit of pity mixed in when they stopped to answer? Why were all these people looking at him? He used to be able to slip in and out of places unnoticed. Nobody cared about a foster kid in raggedy clothes.

At one point, there was even an avid reporter whom he hastily escaped by ducking into the pawn shop two streets over, calling a hello to Ferdinand, the grumpy elderly man behind the counter who owned the shop. He and Ferdinand had never been exactly friendly, but they were on okay terms with each other.

Rather proud of his tactic at avoiding the reporter, but content to wait until he was sure she'd lost his scent, Hiccup began walking the aisles, searching for anything of interest, but of course, there was nothing. He had visited this shop every week or so for the past eight or so years. There was really nothing new. There was still the same Chinese vase, the scratched diamond ring… But even as he thought this, eyes scanning the painted portraits for a sign of change, his heart jumped in surprise. Wait, what was that?

For he had just met a gaze that was very familiar: his own. Ferdinand did not sell mirrors here, and there was no reason for him to keep them in the shop. The boy pushed the portraits aside, drawing back almost instantly at the face that greeted him, beaming out at him through the thoroughly abused glass cover. Those were his eyes. Except they weren't set in his face. They belonged to a redheaded young woman, cheeks freckled and flushed, her eyes sparkling like emeralds, aglow with happiness and youth. She looked…she looked…yet even as Hiccup struggled to form thoughts, he knew. She looked like him. She looked like the woman Mrs. Hannigan had described for him a million times, she looked like him! Or…maybe he looked like her? Yes, it would make sense if he took after her…his heart was hurting with how much he hoped.

"Ferdinand." He could not stop the emotions plaguing him suddenly – the hope and the fear and the happiness, the wretched hope and happiness that always, always came before disappointment. "Ferdinand!" As fast as he could, he raced across the scuffed wooden floor of the shop, coming to a stop at the counter and thrusting the portrait under the man's nose.

"Yeah?" The old man seemed entirely unmoved by the portrait.

"Ferdinand, who gave this to you?"

"Young woman," Ferdinand replied shortly. "She gave me that ring, there, too." He gestured to the diamond ring on the shelf to which Hiccup had never given much thought. "Made a pretty penny off it, which was lucky – I shouldn't have given her nothin' for the portrait."

"When? Where? Did you get her name? Do you remember…did she look like this?"

"Yeah, she looked like that." Ferdinand did not seem to grasp the enormity of his own words. "This was a time ago, mind you, about ten years."

"Can you…give me an exact number?"

"Well, let's see…it was about December…it would have been that December when we got all them blizzards…"

Every December in upstate Ohio had blizzards, but Hiccup was so rapt, so hopeful, that he did not point this out.

"It would have been…December of 2002? Thirteen years ago, I think."

Hiccup's thoughts, feelings, his whole world was spinning around this one, undeniable truth: it all added up. His mother must have been here. She'd sold a ring and a portrait of herself…Finally, finally, he knew what his mother looked like. After so many years of waiting and wanting and wishing, longing for the love of a mother, he'd seen her face.

"Can you tell me more?"

"Eh, my memory's not what it used to be," Ferdinand admitted, shrugging. "She looked different, though – portrait must have been painted some time before she came here, because she was pregnant – very far along, too, by the looks of it. And she was sicker."

The words were like a million rays of sun, chasing away the darkness he'd lived in when it came to knowledge of his parents. It was getting hard to swallow around the lump in his throat, his eyes were stinging, but he wasn't crying. Not yet. "What was this picture…I mean, where was it, then? Shouldn't it have been displayed with the others?"

"I'm not sure how much of a profit I'm gonna make on it to be honest." But as Ferdinand spoke, he gave Hiccup a long, searching look. It didn't take the boy long to realize why. He was clinging to the portrait with all the desperation of a drowning man. He should put it back and leave the shop now, but he…he couldn't. Not when his mother's portrait and ring were in this place, resting on shelves and collecting dust over thirteen years…His eyes stung again.

"Tell you what." Ferdinand's voice was very soft. "Pay what you can when you can."