FORTY: Enslaved
Despite the fact that it was Hiccup-her Hiccup, the man she had loved since he was a clumsy, goofy kid in his early teens-Astrid was on edge as they swept up the winding roads towards Raven Point. Her heart had leapt for joy at the improbable and miraculous news that he was alive, that all those tiny clues she had been ignoring because they just had to be insane coincidences were in fact correct. The charming, charismatic billionaire who she had been treating with utmost caution because he was almost certain to be one of the ilk of Viggo, Johann and Eret despite the undoubted attraction she felt for him was her lost Hiccup. And though he had maintained his facade, he had shown nothing but respect and politeness to her-though it was clear he was playing a game with her husband. And she couldn't help but wonder what had happened to him, what he had endured…and how he escaped from the prison no one returned from.
They accelerated up the gravel drive, trees flashing past to the left and the right before they rounded the curve and she gasped as she saw the very modern and very elegant house he had built for himself. He glanced over at her, a smile lifting his lips as he read her astonished expression. He glanced back at the road as they slowed and he swept round to arrive at the main entrance.
"Not bad for a dead man," he murmured and she nodded.
"It's…amazing…" she breathed. "Very different." He shrugged and switched off the engine.
"The old house was Dad's pride and joy and it was gone. It is gone and my trying to build a copy wouldn't make it right. It wouldn't bring back those decades of history and memories. So I built something different. And I had to have it up here, a safe distance from the town where I could come and go as I pleased-and where I could rescue Toothless…" Her face lightened.
"You have him?" she asked and then she sighed. "I did as you asked-I went straight from your trial and flew him up to the cove, covering him with camouflage netting. I used to visit him, to talk to you…"
"Fink told me when we caught him trespassing up in the forest…" he admitted, seeing her roll her eyes in exasperation.
"He takes too much after me," she sighed. "I told him to practice and them practice some more if he wanted to be good-because I always did."
"I gave him permission to come up here when he wanted-as long as he checked in with the house so we knew he was up here…more in case he fell and hurt himself, to be honest," he admitted. "And he was up here most days. I let my friends Tuff and Ruff give him some pointers. And he would have won that race, if not for the interference…"
"The attempt to kill him," Astrid said flatly. "Oh, I know what it was. And why. Eret had defaulted on some debt or other or annoyed the wrong people…and they thought attacking his son…maybe killing him…would scare Eret. They didn't know Eret never cared…because Fink wasn't his son."
"No-he was yours," Hiccup said, climbing out. "Come inside. You can meet my friends…" Reluctantly, she clambered out, clasping her purse and the jewellery box that Hiccup had left in the car. Then she paused.
"I-I don't know what to say," she said quietly and he instantly turned to walk to her side, taking her hand and looking carefully into her face.
"It's okay," he soothed her, feeling her hand tighten around his. "Say whatever you think. Because they will." And then he led her in, into the huge atrium that was the whole height of the house, light streaming through the glass roof, the sweeping wooden staircase in green oak dominating the space. Astrid stared up in shock as she slowly turned round. Hiccup smiled.
"Ta dah?" he tried as her jaw dropped.
"It's…spectacular…" she murmured. He chuckled.
"After…my time in Jotunheim, I have a serious dislike of dark enclosed spaces," he admitted. "I really like to be able to see outside at all times…because if you have spent a decade in a stone box where you can just about see a tiny patch of sky, you need to remind yourself that you aren't there-and are never going back." She turned to him then, hearing the edge to his voice, the fractured tone he had masked so expertly for so long and she closed to take his hand. Her gentle grasp closed on his warm skin as she looked into his face.
"Hey," she murmured. "It's okay. You're safe, Babe." He managed a wan smile.
"Hey Ingen-you're back!" Fishlegs said, scurrying out of the office. "I checked those papers you gave me and…" And then he stared. Heather had emerged from the opposite direction and she stared, her brows knotting in anger as she spied the newcomer.
"What's she doing here?" she demanded.
"I could ask the same," Fishlegs added, walking closer. Hiccup turned to face them.
"This is Astrid," he said, introducing her to the others. But as she looked up, she saw hostile faces.
"Is that the same Astrid who betrayed you and married the man who framed you?" Heather asked sharply.
"The same person you swore to make pay for the worst betrayal of all?" Fishlegs added as Astrid shrank back. She leaned towards Hiccup.
"I won't come between you and your friends," she murmured but he grasped her hand firmly, restraining her as she tried to retreat.
"I want you to stay," he told her swiftly. But she shook her head.
"These people were there for you when I was not," she reminded him. "I won't cause you any further hurt, Hiccup. I lost the right to call you a friend a long time ago."
"And yet…you are," he told her gently. "And yes, you made some mistakes-but you believed that I was gone. And you had the blessing of my father and the children to look after…"
"What?" Heather asked sharply. "She just flutters her baby blues at you and you forgive her?" Astrid looked up, hearing the anger and jealousy in the other woman's voice.
"It seems my heart is larger than my brain," Hiccup told her. "She was my first love. Is my first love."
"And what about me?" Heather asked him bluntly. "I-I trusted you. You know how I feel…"
"And you know how I feel, Heather," Hiccup told her gently, pulling away from the unresisting Astrid. "I know how much you suffered…"
"So that's it?" the raven-haired girl snapped. "You can't touch me because I…"
"No, no…" Hiccup said quickly, walking forward to gently touch her hand. "Heather, I never think of you like that. Ever." And then he paused. "And I never thought of you like that anyway. You are a friend, a woman who has suffered badly and who I would never take any advantage of because you trusted me after you were rescued." She recoiled.
"I don't want your trust," she said in an angry, breathless voice. "I want more. I need more."
"But that wasn't something I was ever ready to give, Heather," he tried to tell her.
"But not apparently to her," she snapped. "The moment she comes back, you immediately carry on where you left off. While I have stood by you and helped you all the way through. When we all have-while she betrayed you."
"I love her!" Hiccup told her sharply. They all stared at him. "I love her. I have always loved her-and when I saw her at that first Cocktail party in the Great Hall, standing by her daughter, I couldn't take my eyes off her. I almost blew it then and it took all my strength of will not to rush over to her and tell her who I was."
"While she was still married to the man who betrayed you," Heather insisted. "You told me all about how desperate you were when you learned what had happened to her…of how she had abandoned your father and betrayed you."
"Heather-please…" Hiccup said gently as she glared at him.
"I have been loyal to you all the way through," she repeated. "I love you. I deserve you. And you should love me, not some stale whore who followed the money and looked out only for her own interests…"
"Actually," Fishlegs interrupted, "she has provided compelling evidence which clears her former boyfriend, Hiccup Haddock, of treason." He blinked and recalled his own investigations that he had only started once they reached Berk. "We should have clocked earlier-that we were looking at the former girlfriend of the only person convicted on Berk of Treason…"
"So she's blackmailing you," Heather assumed.
"No," the auburn-haired man protested. "I approached her. I revealed myself."
"And she lied to you," Heather pressed.
"She's the mother of my children!" he shot back as everyone stared. Then the husky man and the raven-haired woman all burst out laughing.
"Gods, you are obvious," Heather told him. "It's a lie, plain and simple…"
"Not really," a female voice came from the top of the stairs. The twins were sitting on the mezzanine, legs dangling between the spindles and eating popcorn. Ruff gestured with her bag of sweet'n'salty. "The boy, Fink, has Ingen's eyes. Cami and Snot clocked it the first time he came here-and we're convinced as well…"
"The DNA testing confirms it," Fishlegs added as Hiccup snatched a shocked look at his friend.
"How the Helheim…?" he murmured and then looked up the stairs. "Tuffnut!"
"Why me?" the male twin protested. "The others helped!"
"Oh, come on," Heather protested but Hiccup turned to the blonde woman, his heart suddenly filled with warmth.
"Astrid-when were the twins born?" he asked. She sighed.
"May 29th, at about 35 weeks," she told him.
"And you married Eret?"
"January 31st," she admitted softly. "Three weeks after the news came through that you had…" She swallowed.
"And we last…?"
"October 12th," she reminded him with a small smile, her eyes filled with nostalgia. "In Toothless. You were put on trial October 15th and convicted and shipped out on the 19th."
"Thanks," Hiccup commented dryly. "I may not have forgotten that."
"Sorry," Astrid murmured but he turned back to smile at her.
"Tis okay, Milady," he told her gently. But she shook her head.
"They don't believe me," she told him evenly. "They're about to accuse me of betraying you with Eret before the trial. And it's not true. I wouldn't let him touch me until we were married and I knew he was only forcing himself on me because he hoped I'd lose the twins…" She looked away, her eyes closed. "He didn't seem to understand the word 'no'. And I was pregnant and vulnerable." Then she pulled away. "I won't cause division amongst your friends, Hiccup. I can go back to the hostel. Just please-find my children. Please get Zeph and Fink out of their hands before they are lost."
"Astrid…" he breathed and then he turned to the others. "What the Helheim is wrong with you?" he shouted.
They stared at him in shock. He turned to look at them all-including Cami and Snotlout, who had emerged at the yell. Heather gestured to the shape at the door.
"Her!" she snapped. "The fact that someone who you have planned the destroy all the way through is suddenly here, forgiven and embraced when her betrayal broke your heart. When we have stood loyally by you. When you ignore what is in front of your eyes!"
Hiccup's fists clenched and Astrid could see that he was holding onto his temper tightly.
"You don't have to stay," he told her and then looked at them all. "That goes for all of you. Because all the way through. I have given you that option. And-Gods bless you-you stayed to help me. Did you know the first thing I did when we started this was approach the President and make sure you all had pardons ready for anything you did in bringing down Viggo Grimborn, Ryker Grimborn, Eret Eretson and Johann Trayder? But the only person who knows what I suffered is me. I am the one who dug for years to get out of Jotunheim. I am the one who saw his best friend and mentor die, mere feet from freedom. I am the one who was so desperate I tried to kill myself so many times after I lost my leg and was alone in that cell. And I was desperate enough to allow them to throw me into the sea as a corpse because even if I died, it was better than spending one more hour in that cell. Buried alive, forgotten and abandoned…only to find that everyone had been told I killed myself only three months after I was imprisoned. I was meant to die there, alone and unmourned."
They all stared at him.
"And when I found the treasure, I offered to share it with you who were with me," he continued angrily. "I used some to buy the aircraft company and start Dragon's Edge-but the designs were mine. The innovation was mine. And because I had spent years modelling the aircraft with Gobber, it took almost no time to test and start commercially building them. All this was my work. And I shared. But no one has the right to tell me what I can and cannot do…and who I can and cannot love! After everything that has happened, I am not losing Astrid again." Then he turned back to her and closed the distance to a few inches. She stared into his face, his eyes fever-bright.
"You lost a leg?" she whispered. He nodded.
"Broken and compounded in a prison fight…which your former husband and Johann…as well as Drago Bludvist…witnessed," he revealed. "I almost died…but Dagur was searching for his sister and ended up as a guard in Jotunheim. He saved my life. And then he moved on. When I got out, I sought him out to thank him for his kindness. I learned of his quest and used my resources to help him look for her-and I found her…" And he turned his head to look at Heather. "In the place where they sent our daughter."
There were gasps and Astrid's eyes widened-and then she looked at the raven-haired woman standing forlorn. Heather wrapped her arms around her body, her eyes stricken. And she noted that Cami moved kindly to the slender woman's side, leaning close to her and murmuring a few words of reassurance in her ear.
"When you ignore what is in front of your eyes," she murmured, reading the expression in the wild-haired blonde's eyes. Hiccup sighed.
"I want you to stay…or I go with you," he told her. She shook her head.
"Your friends are more important," she told him.
"Er…no we're not," Cami cut in. "And you're right. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be with the one you love. You cannot force love-whether by paying for it or faking it or pretending to be who and what you are not. Astrid knows you better than any of us. And you opened to her as you haven't to us over the last six years." He leaned forward, his forehead resting against Astrid's, his hand resting lightly on her arm.
"Ingen Doddman," he said slowly. "Fishlegs was right. No One Dead Man is exactly who I am. No One. A man whose name is still buried in the rubble of a prison that no one escapes from-and which the Governor covered up my escape from. Well, if I was officially dead years earlier, how could I have escaped?"
"Well, it would be a really impressive feat which would require…oh, that was one of those rhetocrical questions, wasn't it?" Tuff offered from the mezzanine.
"Please-rescue my children," she whispered. "Especially my seventeen year old daughter from that place. Please don't let her have to endure what your friend did." Silently he nodded-and then he looked over at Snotlout.
"Snot-please could you dig out our schematics and any fresh intelligence and satellite photos of Trader's Isle and the Northern Markets," he said firmly. "And give Dagur a call. We have to go in and get Zephyr out of Betsy's-before Johann gets a chance to enjoy himself-or cash in on her virginity…" The jet-haired man grimaced.
"On it," he said. "Fish-can you get hold of Dagur? You're better at giving a shortened version of the problem. Because I really wouldn't know where to start…" Cami sighed, still resting her hand on Heather's arm.
"Start with her story about what happened to her kids and work on from there," she advised. Slowly, Heather nodded.
"No one should have to go through what I did," she admitted defeatedly. "I-I just want you to be happy, Ingen." He sighed.
"I'm sorry, Heather," he said genuinely. "But I can't lie. I've tried to tell you for so long…but you never wanted to hear. It isn't fair to you or to me when my heart is elsewhere." She gave a choked breath.
"I-I know," she murmured and turned away, walking slowly back towards the office. Cami looked up at him.
"I'll talk to her," she volunteered. Hiccup opened his mouth but she shook her head. "Look, we all knew you didn't really see her like that-but Heather believes that you did love her. Probably because you were the first person to be kind to her after some terrible times. You were her hero-are her hero. And her dreams were very much built around being with you." He gave a shuddering sigh.
"I never intended…" he mumbled. "I never meant…"
"Look, you've been decent and kind to Heather," Tuff commented, finishing his packet of popcorn. "You talk to her-to all of us-like friends."
"You are my friends," Hiccup mumbled as Tuff nodded.
"And you are ours. But you always got Heather to accompany you as your PA-but to her, it must feel like being your date. Even though you never go as just to two of you-you always have Snot, Fish or us along as well."
"And to a woman who has had everything taken away, such kindness must make you hope that perhaps you are loved and that you are special and worthwhile," Ruff added. "It's not your fault," she added, seeing his face. "It's just who you are. No matter how serious things are, you are a decent guy. And that you can forgive someone you're so angry with for so long shows what a great guy you are."
"Hey, I'd marry you!" Tuff offered. "Seriously. I could used to living in a pad like this…"
"You do live in a pad like this," Hiccup said ironically. "You and Ruff have a room here. You could have a room each here-but you refused to be separated-even by an adjoining wall…"
"Look, we shared a womb and we've done everything together since," Ruff reminded him. "I refuse to ever do anything alone."
"Me neither," Tuff added.
"Well then, could you both show Astrid to a spare room please?" Hiccup asked. "I need to speak to Snot and Dagur…" And then he headed off in the direction the direction his cousin had vanished, leaving Astrid standing in the lobby. The twins waved at her.
"Hey, A," Tuff called. "Wanna come up? My unawesome sister and I will show you to your room." Hands tightening around her purse, she nodded, an unfamiliar sense of anxiety and dislocation washing over her.
"Thanks," she said and started to climb.
oOo
The shape on the screen frowned as Hiccup finished his tale and he focussed on the billionaire. Dagur was in what looked like a pre-fabricated building, a window behind him almost obscured by a blind. The red-haired man drummed his fingers on the trestle table in front of him as he considered the words.
"You never ask for anything minor, do you?" he commented dryly.
"If it was minor, I could probably have sorted it myself," Hiccup admitted, staring at his friend's dubious expression.
"You know that Johann is practically a god up in the Northern Markets?" Dagur asked him. "I mean, he favoured them above everyone and tried to bankrupt most of the Archipelago-especially Berk-so that Drago and his Northern allies could sweep in and offer their supposed prosperity…"
"Eret handed his own daughter over to Johann to settle his gaming debts," Hiccup growled, unreasonably angry. "A young woman, just seventeen, who us inexperienced and completely innocent. A young woman who will be raped and brutalised in Betsy's-just like your sister. A young woman who is, in fact, my daughter." Eyes widening in shock, Dagur gave a small chuckle.
"You been holding out on me, Ingen?" he asked in an amused voice. "Just how did you knock up the luscious Mrs Eretson?"
"When she was Miss Hofferson and my betrothed," Hiccup replied more sharply than he had intended. "She didn't know when I was arrested and locked away. She found out after I was condemned and she only accepted him after I was announced as dead."
"You looked pretty lively when I saw you," Dagur commented.
"And I'm only alive thanks to you," Hiccup admitted. "I only found out today-though apparently my friends had clocked that the boy, at least, has my eyes…"
"You have a very perceptive group of friends," Dagur commented in an amused voice. "Unusual to be sure, but very perceptive." He paused. "And the mother?"
"I forgave her," Hiccup revealed. There was a cold pause.
"And my sister?" Dagur asked. "I thought that you and her…?" Reluctantly, Hiccup shook his head.
"No," he said. "Never. I mean, I saw her when I rescued her from the bastard who was abusing her, when I realised what had happened…I just was scared to even touch her. She was so fragile, so vulnerable…and I knew she was incredibly grateful to me for rescuing her."
"She loves you, I think," Dagur told him thoughtfully.
"I never sought that," Hiccup revealed. "I never wanted it. And though I care for Heather…it is not reciprocated. I don't see her like that." Dagur puffed out his cheeks.
"Ouch," he commented.
"And I'm sorry if it offends you…but I can't force my heart to love where it doesn't," Hiccup said quietly. "I spent almost eleven years locked up in the jail that no one ever escapes from. I was in love with Astrid when I went in. I loved her when I escaped. I came looking for her, clinging to the hope that maybe she had waited. And she hadn't…because they were all told I had died. And then she married the man who had betrayed and framed me. I blamed her for six years, my heart wounded and hurt and shattered beyond belief. I had locked away that part of me that thought about, that hoped for Astrid while I was in jail because it was agony to think of her when I was locked up in there. And when I escaped, I locked my heart up tighter than I had been in Jotunheim because I couldn't allow it to be hurt again. So I guess I know what Heather thinks…but it would be unfair to her to lie. She has lost too much already."
"I think she imagines you feel the same for her as she does for you," the mercenary pointed out.
"I never meant for her to get that impression," Hiccup repeated. "I have told her so many times she was wrong, that I felt nothing. She never heard. She never listened. And I never wanted to harm her." Dagur gave a twisted smile.
"You are her saviour and she loves you for that," he said. "You're kind and caring. But you're right: I never saw love there. Maybe that would be enough…if Astrid hadn't returned. You still love her."
"Yes."
"And you want to save your child and be with her?"
"Why shouldn't I have a dream beyond revenge?" Hiccup asked, suddenly angry. "Why should the fact I was framed for treason and spent over a decade in Helheim condemn me to never being allowed what I want? Why should I have to sacrifice my one, last chance of happiness because of a perceived obligation to someone I care for but don't love just because she thinks she loves me?"
The man on the screen gave a small smile.
"I hear you, my friend," he said. "You found my sister when I could not. You have cared for her and I have no doubt you will never deliberately harm her. And I cannot allow another to be treated as she was. Johann enjoys preying on young women-he harmed my sister. He can't be allowed to ruin your daughter as well. It's time he was stopped permanently." He nodded. "I'll have my men scramble. Be ready-we're heading for the Northern Markets. And this time, Johann isn't walking away!"
