Okay, first off. This is my submission from Day 3 of Jackunzel Week (the story that started it all, if you will), but I did a lot of editing to both flesh it out and help it fit into the story. So, even if you read the original version, please reread it now.
Also, my friend recently suggested a ship name for Jackunzel – Frozen Lanterns. Anyone interested in making it stick?
Oh, yes. Random note. The Hopeful Puffin is the name of Hiccup's first boat in the How To Train Your Dragon books. After I posted the first version of this story during Jackunzel Week, I realized I should have called the ship The Hopeful Puffin II, to play with the idea that Hiccup had still gone through some kind of pirate training program on Berk. Since book 10 already included The Hopeful Puffin II, I decided to use The Hopeful Puffin III for this story. Yeah, kinda random. Sorry.
Among The Stars
Chapter 4
"All right," Jack sighed, closing the menu on the ship's computer. "All our records are changed. The ship is now The Hopeful Puffin III, and we haven't been anywhere near Pallash or Corona."
He spun the pilot's chair to look at his friends. Hiccup sat in one of the other seats, while Merida leaned against the wall in what looked suspiciously like a sulk.
In the past few days she had gone from screaming death threats to only speaking when absolutely necessary – though jibes were still present.
"We have a shot, then," Hiccup sighed, leaning back in his seat.
"Maybe," Jack shrugged. "But seriously, Hiccup. The Hopeful Puffin? You promised we would never use that name again."
"It's nonthreatening," Hiccup said. "That's what we need right now."
"I'd've thought ye o' all people would understand that, Frost."
Jack didn't even bother reacting.
"Saving a princess is not supposed to be this complicated," he muttered.
"Saving the princess wasn't complicated," Hiccup said, hands in his hair. "It's what we do now that's complicated."
"Thank you for clearing that up." Jack rolled his eyes.
"Would ya boys quite arguin'?" Merida asked. "Frost, quit complainin'."
The three friends were quiet for a moment, Jack glaring at the dash as though it had done him a personal injustice.
"The simple fact is: we saved the princess, but we can't take her back to Corona. Now with the Imperial occupation." Hiccup said. "We have to lay low. Preferably on a planet we're familiar with, that's not in Imperial territory."
"That's getting' harder every day," Merida said, though they were all aware of the fact.
"What about DunBroch?" Hiccup asked, looking at his wife. "Your father's no friend of the Empire."
But Merida shook her head. "Not while the war with Mor'du is back on. What about Berk? Even if they thought t' look – which they probably wouldn't – there's plenty o' places to hide."
"Yeah, no," Jack said. "You want to take a princess from Corona to a planet of space pirates?"
Merida glared at him.
"There's nowhere else without going through Imperial Territory," Hiccup said.
"There's Warren." There was a decided smirk in Merida's voice.
Her wit had returned apparently, and she was now using it to sharpen her verbal jabs.
Jack turned his chair again, to find his friends looking at him expectantly.
"You're kidding."
Their expressions didn't change.
"You remember I was kicked off the planet, right? With 'good riddance' still ringing in my ears?"
"Wouldn't Aster make an exception?" Hiccup asked. "For the princess?"
For a moment, Jack pictured Rapunzel on Warren, among the bright flowers, the warm sunlight and the green grass... she would fit in just fine. And Aster would probably love her.
He probably would make an exception...
If Jack apologized. But he wasn't ready to admit just how wrong he had been. Not to Aster. Anyone else maybe – but not him.
The ship shuddered, lurched, and then stilled. The vibration of the engines changed as it switched from the hyperdrive to the sub-light engines.
"Where are we?" Merida asked.
"Krash," Jack said, as he spun his chair back to the viewport.
Krash was a small trading post, always in the shadow of its sister planet. Its clientele ranged from honest traders to space pirates, and everything in between.
Since they were on the run, it seemed like a decent place to regroup. Few questions were asked, and they would only be here a few hours.
But when he looked out the viewport, he saw it wouldn't be that easy. An Imperial Carrier, large and menacing, orbited the planet, like a vulture waiting for anything to move. While fighters hovered like flies.
"What are they doin' here?" Merida asked.
No one bothered to answer that, because they all knew.
"Have they hailed us?" asked Hiccup.
Jack was about to say no when the comm system crackled.
"Unidentified vessel, this is Imperial Carrier 74-8512. Please state your cargo and purpose on Krash."
"Of course – it's an enhanced carrier," Jack muttered, noting that dash in the identification number. That meant not only were there more fighters, troops and officials, but the commanding officer was higher ranking. And the weaponry was to the max.
Hiccup took the comm.
"Imperial Carrier, this is Captain Haddock of The Hopeful Puffin III."
Jack cringed at the fake name, as he always did.
"We have no cargo. We're here to refuel and resupply."
The friends waited with baited breath, Jack's brain already racing over the best possible course of action for whatever happened next.
"How many are on board?"
"Ruder than usual," Merida muttered.
Hiccup looked at Jack, silently asking if they could hide or disguise the princess.
Jack held up three fingers, and Hiccup nodded.
"Three, sir. My first mate, our pilot, and myself."
Another pregnant pause that extended far too long. Jack watched the numbers on the dash chrono change twice.
Jack half turned to Merida, not taking his eyes off the carrier.
"Get the princess. Hide anything in her room."
"What about her?"
"Evidence first. I—"
He was cut off when the comm system crackled again.
"Hopeful Puffin, prepare to be boarded and searched."
Merida ran out of the cockpit.
"I hope you have an idea," Hiccup said, after a polite agreement to the officer.
#
Rapunzel wore one of Merida's dark green flight suits (which didn't fit her slight frame), with her pink brocade slippers, when Hiccup and Jack joined them in the ship's lounge. It looked as though she had been in the process of re-braiding her hair, but most of it still trailed on the floor behind her.
"You hid everything?" Jack asked, looking at Merida even as he reached for Rapunzel's hand. He was doing his best not to think about how easy the motion had become in the past week.
"Down the laundry chute," Merida said with a nod.
"We're latched onto the carrier," Hiccup said. "They'll be on any moment. What's your plan, Jack?"
"Let them search the ship," Jack said.
Rapunzel's hand gripped his, and he could feel her nervousness. He returned her grip in an attempt to reassure her.
"Where'll ye be?" Merida asked.
"I'll be in the shower," Jack smirked. "Come on, Blondie."
Merida called after them, but they were already around the corner, so Jack couldn't make it out.
It must have been a sign of trust that Rapunzel didn't question him, just followed.
They came to t a stop outside his room, and Jack slammed his hand against the palm reader outside his door. His agitation grew in the split second it took for the light to flash green.
The Imperials wouldn't waste time boarding the ship. Even if they weren't suspicious, they were probably bored.
The door slid open.
His quarters were simple – a square room with a shower unit and a refresher unit in one corner, along with a walk in closet. He hadn't bothered to personalize it much. What was personal to him was safely tucked away in the closet, or the drawers of the bureau against one wall.
He removed his gauntlet and tucked it into one of his drawers.
"Get in," he said, nodding toward the shower unit.
Rapunzel nodded and went to be. Jack followed, tugging off his blue shirt and his brown slacks. Unlike his gauntlet, he just threw them to the floor with no regard for where they landed.
In the doorway of the shower, Rapunzel's green eyes widened.
"Jack-!"
She stopped with a gasp when Jack pushed her gently into the shower, still in his boxers as he followed her in.
He paused to make sure a towel hung on the bar outside the shower unit. Satisfied everything was in place, he went to close the door... but rolled his eyes when he saw several yard of golden hair still outside.
"Is all this hair really necessary?" he asked again, as he dragged it in. He hadn't had to worry about her hair while they were on the ship (she had kept it braided most of them time), but couldn't resist asking again.
All her hair was in the shower unit, and he closed the door.
"Long hair is a mark of n-nobility on Corona." She was pointedly looking everywhere but at him.
"That explains it." He rolled his eyes. But he had seen weirder, and more annoying, marks of hierarchy.
He picked her up by her waist and set her on the ledge that was meant for shower products. She was small enough it worked as a seat, and he handed her the bottles that had been there before her.
"Are you sure this will work?" Rapunzel asked, not looking up from the bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash, that now sat on her lap while Jack twisted the knobs to start a stream of hot water from the shower head.
"Nothing is sure," Jack said, the familiar words leaving his lips before he registered they had even shown up in his mind. He didn't remember who had said them, only that he had heard them so many times the response was second nature.
He took a deep breath to calm his own nerves, trying to think of anything he might be missing, or overlooking.
The shower unit filled with steam, decreasing the oxygen level.
With another deep breath of the thick air, Jack leaned back against the wall of the shower, keeping an eye on the waterproof comm unit for an alert from Hiccup or Merida.
"I'm sorry to be so much trouble," Rapunzel said, after a moment.
Jack shrugged, not sure what to say.
They hadn't exactly planned to rescue her... they had been in a place at a time. Right or wrong, he wasn't sure. But the princess wasn't guilty of anything; she didn't deserve to be locked up. And Jack was too much of a free spirit to wish that on anyone who wasn't a criminal.
"Will it take long?" she asked. "For them to search the ship?"
"Depends how bored they are – and how suspicious," he said. "A carrier that big has enough troops to send several teams-"
There was the thud of boots on the ceiling overhead, on the upper level. He heard Rapunzel gasp, but held his breath and counted the steps just about his head.
"Six," he said. "They never board a ship this size with less than eight, so there's at least two teams of six searching all three levels."
"How do you know?"
Jack looked over at the princess, who was going from nervous to terrified at a rapid rate. Not that he could blame her. Empress Gothel wasn't known for humane treatment in her prisons.
He hesitated a moment, then sighed.
"I attended the Imperial Flight Academy," he said. The decision was what had gotten him kicked off warren.
"You were an Imperial?"
"Technically," he said. "I was one of the best pilots they ever had."
She arched an eyebrow at his bragging, and he was relieved to see she was relaxing a little.
"Hey, it's true," he said. "But there were problems when they tried to make me an officer."
"What happened?"
"According to my final assessment, I was 'rash, not a team player, had no sense of responsibility and lacked proper respect for authority'."
Rapunzel giggled. She finally looked up, albeit shyly, to meet his gaze.
"Merida fell over laughing when I told her that." He rolled his eyes. "Can you hand me the shampoo?"
Rapunzel looked at the three bottled in her lap, and handed over the requested one.
Jack squirted some of the blue substance in his palm and began to lather it through his hair.
"What about you?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
Jack shrugged. "Tell me something about yourself. What do you like to do?"
"Oh. I- I like to paint. And read. And garden." She leaned back against the shower wall. "If I were on Corona, I would be helping replant some of the garden beds right now."
She hugged herself, her eyes darkening. "All I ever wanted was to be a good ruler for my people. Now I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back. And with the trade blockade, they're probably suffering now."
Jack looked away, not sure what to say or do to comfort her.
But the sound of sniffling made him look back.
Rapunzel quickly wiped away her tears, but he could still see her stress, and her fear.
"Hey." Forgetting his hands were covered in shampoo suds, he reached out to rest a hand on her arm.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I know being scared won't help anything. But this is all my fault. I'm so sorry, Jack. If I hadn't-"
The comm buzzed.
"Frost? Where are ya?" Merida's irritation thickened her accent.
While dragging Rapunzel into the shower would have been a risky move under normal circumstances, Jack realized that with the state Merida was in, she was likely to follow through on all her recent death threats.
He hesitated a moment, refusing to admit he was scared of the redhead, before he hit the talk-back button. "I'm in the shower. Can this wait?"
"No," she snapped. "We're bein' searched."
"My door's unlocked."
Her annoyance, he realized, could be used to his advantage, he realized, adding a few more details to his plan. He let himself smirk for a moment, but then turned back to Rapunzel.
"We're gonna get through this, okay?" he said, touching her cheek gently. It was how Toothiana had comforted him when he was younger, and the motion wasn't fully thought it.
"Are you sure?" she asked, looking up to meet his eyes. She seemed to have forgotten his state of dress for the moment.
Nothing is sure. The words resounded in his mind. But he pushed them aside.
"You gotta trust me," he said, speaking fast and low. "Just try to keep quiet, okay?"
"Okay," she nodded.
Stepping from the shower, Jack wrapped the towel around his waist, over his boxers. Just as he folded it into place, the door of his room slid open. After the warmth of the shower, the air that blasted in from the hall was frigid against his wet skin.
Merida walked in, glaring vibroblades at him, followed by an imperial officer in severe black uniform, and four troopers in full armor.
"Uh, hi?" he offered. Memories of having his dorm room searched as a cadet came back as he saw the troopers.
The officer, whose name tag read Black, looked at him with visible distasted. His angled face was an unhealthy grayish, while his black hair was slicked back to military standards. His hands were held behind his back. When he turned slightly to examine the room, Jack spotted a datapad in one of his hands.
The man reminded Jack exactly why he hadn't liked being in the Academy. The stiff formality, and regulated everything, had been mind-numbing.
"Your name?" Officer Black asked, with a disapproving glance over Jack's appearance.
"Jack Frost." Out of old habit, he almost added 'sir'. But he bit it back in time. His body had started to stiffen to attention, but he refused. He was not a soldier. Not anymore.
"You're the pilot of this ship?" Black's eyes wondered the room, brows raised, upper lip curled.
The troopers were searching his room – in drawers, and under the bed. One opened the top drawer and pulled out his gauntlet... but set it down after a moment's examination.
Jack resisted any comment on the invasion of privacy. One had what he recognized as a heat detector. He had anticipated that – hence why he'd made sure to fill the shower with steam.
"Yes." Another 'sir' jumped to his lips, only to be bitten back.
"You're the pilot, yet you're taking a shower-" he cast a distasteful glance at the clothes Jack had thrown to the floor "- while this ship prepares to land?"
"It's my time off," he said, with a nonchalant shrug. "Hiccup and Merida are both capable pilots."
More than capable. But he wouldn't say that now – not when he was trying to annoy Black out of his room.
Black looked at Merida.
"My husband and I aren't too strict," Merida said, almost biting out the words.
"Hmm."
Black paced around the room again. He visibly cringed when his foot brushed against Jack's abandoned shirt. His data pad beeped, and he looked down at the screen.
He had looked Jack up in the system.
"Where are you from, Frost?"
"Burgess." Originally. He barely remembered it. But he had put it on his Academy application, and that was the information he would go with.
"You trained at the Imperial Flight Academy, I see."
"For two years," Jack said. "They decided I wasn't officer material."
"Clearly." He cast a pointed look at Jack's towel, and still soapy hair. "What's your purpose here on Krash?"
"Refuel. Resupply."
"You're next destination?"
"I'm the pilot, not the captain." It wasn't a lie, since he didn't have a clue where they would go next. "Now, can I get back to the shower?"
Black glared at him.
"Or do you need to search the shower?"
#
The Night Fury – or The Hopeful Puffin III, if you will – had moved into its sleep cycle. All the lights were dim. Since they were docked on Krash, the engines were silent. Only the feint buzz of the lights, and the hum of the heating system. Kresh was a world of constant night, and the cold seeped everywhere.
Jack sat in the cockpit, looking out at the dull walls of the docking bay. He hadn't bothered to turn on the heater when he had come from his own room, so the cold had seeped into his skin, just as it had seeped into the ship. Not enough to make him shiver, but enough that even he felt cold.
A few thoughts made their way across his mind, but they didn't linger for long. They would pass, to be replaced by another thought.
Nothing deep. Like the fairies on Warren flying past in blurs of color. You knew what they were from familiarity... but you couldn't actually see them.
A new thought came. But this time it lingered as he stared at a patch of rust on the wet durasteel wall without seeing it.
As soon as the Imperials were gone he had gotten out of the shower once more. He had opened the door for Rapunzel (they both needed to change out of their wet clothes).
Merida had been in his doorway, still livid. She had started to lecture... but had been cut off when Rapunzel had assured her it was all right. It had worked, and she said that was all that mattered to her.
The princess was growing on him. But she couldn't look him in the eye without blushing.
Footsteps in the hall made him look back. Hiccup came into the cockpit, running a hand through his messy red-brown hair.
"Why are you awake?" he asked with a yawn.
Jack spun his chair in a full circle. He caught the edge of the dash to stop his momentum, swinging back the other way a little.
"Can't sleep." He continued to swing the chair back and forth. "Merida kick you out?"
Hiccup shook his head as he collapsed into the copilot seat. "She's fast asleep. I haven't seen her so relaxed in weeks. I didn't want to risk waking her up."
That made sense. "You're sure you have no idea what her problem is?"
"No." Hiccup sighed. "Maybe it's the stress. These past few months have been..." He expelled the air from his lungs.
He didn't have to finish the sentence.
"You and the princess seem to be getting close, though," Hiccup said, a smirk appearing through his exhaustion.
"Shut up," Jack rolled his eyes.
"I dunno..." Hiccup said. "If I didn't know better, I'd think the happily single Jack Frost might actually care."
"It's not like that," Jack said, though even as he said it the slight clench in his stomach told him he wasn't being completely honest. "She's just... There aren't many lights left in this galaxy. When you find one, you have to protect it."
So why was his own mind telling him that maybe Hiccup was right...
Jack shook his head slightly to try and clear his thoughts.
But this thought perched on his shoulder and refused to flutter off. Comparable to the fairies again, because there had been the one that refused to leave.
Great. Not only was he (possibly) falling in love with the princess. But he suspected the feeling growing inside him was homesickness. Why else did he keep thinking about fairies and workshops, flower fields, and climbing the Sunset Mountains.
His fingers flexed – a habit he thought he had rid himself of long ago. But it was coming back.
He watched his left hand as he flexed the digits to his palm, watching the way the fingers flexed, each a little different in the way it moved.
The tip of his pinky finger hit his palm first, then the ring finger. The middle and forefinger didn't start to move until the other two had touched down. His thumb didn't move.
He repeated the motion, a little slower this time.
He didn't expect a response – there was a reason he had given up on the movement.
But he repeated the movement one more time.
A shiver passed down his spine, and it wasn't because of the cold.
"We have to go," he whispered, the feeling bearing down on his mind until it was almost painful.
He didn't bother glancing at Hiccup as he brought The Night Fury's engines online. He had to wait a few moments for the engine to warm up. He flexed his fingers as he waited.
Dread nagged at the back of his mind, screaming at him that there was no time, and they had to get out now.
Small relief comforted him when the familiar vibration of the ship returned.
He saw the Imperial carrier, still in orbit. His stomach clenched as he waited for a hail, even as he prepped the ship for light speed.
But it didn't come.
Jack pulled up the nav computer, easily entering the coordinates from memory. It pulled up an image of a blue, green and while planet, with hints of brown and pink.
"Where are we headed?" Hiccup asked cautiously.
"Warren," Jack said. "I'll just have to admit I was wrong."