One of those annoying chapters where the characters are supposed to be smarter than I am, which makes writing them rather difficult.

Then, just to make it more frustrating: I had writer's block for weeks. Then once I decided to just cut to the chase, I was able to slam it out in basically one sitting.

Also, I had to move the scar Jack mentioned in chapter 14. It was on his right arm, but I decided to move it to the right side of his chest. Don't ask. It's just easier that way, because I say so.

Among The Stars

Chapter 28

"Hold still," Hiccup said, eyes fixed on the needle he was holding into the flame that flared from the match he held between his thumb and forefinger.

"Yeah, yeah," Jack muttered, teeth gritted as he leaned back into the pillows he'd piled against the headboard of his bed in the hotel room. Pain emanated from the horizontal, four inch gash that ran from just below the joint of his shoulder.

"You sure you don't wanna at least try the pain killers?" Hiccup asked, as he took a seat on the edge of the bed and set about threading the needle.

Jack shook his head, not bothering to answer that question.

"How'd that happen?"

"Do closed doors not mean anything to you?" Jack opened his eyes to glare over at Merida, who once more stood in the doorway between the rooms.

"Would you turn on the light?" Hiccup asked, gesturing to the light switch near the door.

Merida complied, flooding the room with more light than was just coming through the window.

"Hold still," Hiccup muttered, as he slid the needle into the edges at the base of Jack's cut.

"OW!" He glared over at Merida. "Get out."

"I'm bored," she said with a smirk. "This is more entertainin' than sitting in my room."

Jack rolled his eyes, but had to close them again and bite down hard on his tongue as the needle pricked his skin. The feel of the thread being pulled tight was so strange it was hard not to shiver.

"What happened?" Merida asked. "And why aren't ya usin' pain killers?"

"Because they don't work on me," Jack said through gritted teeth. "And what happened was Ariel."

"What do ya mean?"

"Jim is currently avoiding his mother, for obvious reasons," he said. "He called and said he couldn't come home for lunch."

"He's just making it worse," Hiccup said.

Jack nodded in agreement. "Someone had the brilliant idea to send Ariel to delivery his lunch. And like an idiot I offered to go with her so she wouldn't get lost or anything. The girl is a complete space cadet."

"I noticed," Merida muttered.

"Yeah, well, that's the last time I try to be gallant," Jack said. His jaw clenched as the needle pricked his skin again, this one hurting a little more than the others. He didn't know why painkillers didn't work on his system, but sometimes it felt like yet another injustice heaped on him. "She's like a little kid – everything's new to her and she wants to see it all. On the way back we went into one of the shops, where she tripped over something and crashed into my back. I fell over, and when I reached out to try and catch myself I knocked a porcelain doll off a table. It broke, and when I hit the ground one of the pieces stabbed me in the shoulder. Hence – OW!"

"It's a good thing it wasn't bigger, so it didn't reach the muscle," Hiccup said, pulling another stitch tight.

Merida has left the doorway and come into the room to watch Hiccup work. "Where'd ya learn t' stitch room to stitch wounds?"

"During the war on Berk," Hiccup said, not looking up from the stitching. "Injuries were frequent, medics weren't."

"Oh." Merida fell silent.

No one spoke as Hiccup finished the last few stitches and tied off the thread. He set the needle on the nightstand, next to the burnt match. He ripped open a small packet holding a disinfectant cloth and used it to wipe off his the traces of Jack's blood from his hands.

"A porcelain doll?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Jack didn't bother glancing over, instead glaring at the black stitches on his shoulder. "Nothing you say can possibly make me feel more pathetic, so don't even bother."

"But—"

"Merida, just don't," Hiccup said. He picked up the rolled bandage from the nightstand and went to work wrapping it around Jack's chest and shoulder.

Jack decided to be glad Merida actually listened to Hiccup and not worry about why.

With the bandage clipped in place, Jack collapsed back into the pillows of his bed. His shoulder still throbbed, and his lack of sleep from the nightbefore was catching up to him with a force he could no longer fight.

Hiccup and Merida were talking about something in the background, their voices a soft murmur Jack couldn't have deciphered if he wanted to. And he didn't want to. Sleep was too appealing in his current state. His eyes drifted closed, and everything faded to blissful darkness.

#

It was dark by the time he woke up, but it wasn't exactly blissful. Not with the way the pain in his shoulder washed over him the moment he returned to consciousness. Because of that it took a moment to readjust to the pain before he realized that wasn't what had woken him up. Instead, it was his instincts whispering to him that something was wrong. And the whisper was getting louder, which told him the danger was getting closer.

Jack closed his eyes again, hoping he was wrong. But he didn't fall asleep, and each passing heart beat reminded him of another reason why he knew he wasn't wrong. And each reason left him a little more awake. Until he knew there was no escaping it.

Taking a deep breath, bracing himself, he stood up. He but his tongue against the fresh wave of pain as the movement jarred his shoulder. But he pushed through, going over to the window to look out at the beach, in search of anything out of the ordinary. And he saw it immediately.

The sky was clear, stars shining out of the black night, and there wasn't any wind to speak of. But the ocean was tumultuous, the waves rising and cresting to rapid succession, practically right on top of each other. Beyond the waves, the water churned to white caps.

"That can't be good," he muttered. "Hiccup, get up."

He turned away from the window, and flicked on the overhead light as he went for his backpack.

"What is it?" Hiccup asked, with an alertness that could only come so fast to someone who had learned the hard way to sleep with on eye open.

"Whatever's happening is going down tonight," Jack said, throwing things out of his backpack into two piles – things that were in his way, and things he needed.

"You sure?" Even as Hiccup asked, he was getting out of bed and reaching for clothes he had laid out earlier.

"Look at the sea," Jack said, not looking up as he loaded a new energy pack into one of his blasters. He made sure everything was in place on his utility belt before he got dressed. Once he had pants on, he went over to the separating door and kicked it with a booted foot as he buckled on his belt. "Merida! Get up!"

"That doesn't make sense," Hiccup said from the window. "There's no reason—"

"Get used to it," Jack said. He put his gauntlet on then reached for his shirt – light blue, with ultramarine trim on the hood. Once he'd pulled that on, he grabbed the blue and grey vest he'd been wearing for the past few days. He shrugged into it before he went back over to Merida's door.

He kicked it again, and then reached for the doorknob. It was supposed to be locked, but he wasn't surprised when it turned with no resistance. "Get up."

He turned the light on and looked toward the bed, where Merida had buried her face in the pillow.

"We don't have time for this."

"Did ya hit yer head, Frost? It's still dark out!"

Jack ignored that and held up one of his blasters. "Can you use this?"

Heaven help him. He must be truly crazy if he was putting a blaster in the redhead's hands. But if this was big enough to get Eris' attention, he had a feeling they would need all the help they could get.

Merida blinked, stared at the blaster for a moment, then nodded.

"Don't make me regret this," he said, handing it to her. "Get dressed. We don't have much time."

"What's—"

"No time," he said. As he went back into the other room he zipped up his vest.

Hiccup was zipping up his own Jack as he passed through the door. "Do you have a plan?"

As soon as the question was asked he realized he probably should. But he'd never been good at planning.

"I'll improvise," he said. "I'll tell Sarah to evacuate the inn – you and Merida meet me on the beach."

"Right. And we're going to do what? Fight the ocean?"

That stopped him short.

"Do you have any reason why they should evacuate? One that won't sound absolutely insane?"

Jack opened his mouth. But he had to close it again when nothing came out.

"If ya woke me up for no reason..." Merida didn't bother to finish the threat as she came in, fully dressed, with jack's blaster strapped to her thigh.

The three looked at each other for a moment, none of them sure what to say while they tried to figure out what the others were thinking.

After a full minute (or two), Jack looked at Hiccup. "You're the captain."

"You're the one with the intuition, or whatever you wanna call it."

"Instincts – and they're not doing me much good at the moment. You're the smart one."

"Hey, I can start wars without trying," Hiccup said, an edge creeping into his voice. "but I think I've proved that ending them is a different matter!" The brokenness in his expression was enough to throw Jack off for a moment. "You were trained at the Academy. Didn't they teach you strategy or something?"

"They trained me to follow orders," Jack corrected. "They tried to, anyway."

Hiccup's mouth quirked in a dry smirk.

But they were still in the same position – a looming threat with no idea what it was or how to face it.

Jack racked his brain, searching for any idea what to do. He tried to remember if Bunnymund or North had given him any advice that could help in this situation. But he couldn't seem to call back anything they had taught him. Toothiana's lectures on oral hygiene came back, but those weren't going to be any help.

Hiccup started: "Maybe we can—"

"Lads, ya may wanna take a look outside," Merida cut him off.

Despite her words, they both look at her, only to see that her eyes were wide, glued to the window, but now he turned around to look.

Storm clouds were brewing on the horizon, coming inland. The sea was still turbulent. Other than that, he didn't see what had Merida so transfixed. Then, as he watched, something reared up out of the water. At first he couldn't tell what it was. But as he watched, eyes as wide as Merida's, it reeled around and he realized it was a neck. Almost a hundred feet long, topped with a long, canine-like head. It was too far to see more details, but Jack was fairly sure its gaping mouth held a vicious set of teeth. As he continued to watch, the creature's tail whipped out of the white caps and slashed through the air. It was almost as long as the neck, and there was no hint how much of the body was still under water.

He looked back at Hiccup, just to be sure his friend saw it as well. Hiccup's wide eyes confirmed that he wasn't dreaming.

"Change of plans," Jack said, after he'd swallowed down the lump in her throat. "You guys start the evacuation. I'll find Ariel and see what she knows."

Short, but I thought it was a good place to wrap up this chapter.