Okay, the last chapter. Sorry it took so long… there were problems. (Job, work, stress, life… my inability to write fights against giant sea monsters…) Okay, yeah, just… Enjoy?

Jack was light years beyond courtesy or consideration when he reached Jim's door and slammed his knuckles against the hard wood a few times. He didn't even hear Toothiana in his head, lecturing him on civility. For all the fairy queen's refinement, she understood war as well as any of them. And he was pretty sure pounding on someone's door was allowed in this situation.

After a moment without response, he knocked again.

Finally, Jim answered the door. "What—"

"Where's Ariel?" Jack cut him off. Pleasantries were also waived. In his book, at least.

"Not here!" Jim said, visibly incensed at when he perceived as an accusation.

"Not my question," Jack snapped. "Where is she?"

The door next to Jim's opened and Sarah looked out. "What's going on?"

"There's a sea serpent off the coast, headed this way. You need to evacuate the inn. And you—" he rounded back on Jim "—need to tell me where Ariel is. Now."

"I'm right here.

Jack looked over to see her coming out of a door further down the hall, dressed in a pink nightgown. "Great. Best good news I've had all night. Now can you tell me why there's a sea serpent outside?"

"W-what?" He was getting really tired of that word… but the way her face paled told Jack she had heard him.

And he was running out of patience. "Sea serpent. In the bay. Why?"

She ducked her head, red hair hiding her face, and Jack really wished he were on any other planet.

"It's probably here to take me home," she said, gripping the fabric of her nightgown in her small hands.

Jack frowned.

If it were that simple, it wouldn't have gotten Eris' attention. A couple sea serpents showing up to take a mermaid home, even if they terrorized a city, wasn't big enough. Eris only showed up if there was going to be property damage, at the very least.

At the thought of Eris, her words came back to him and his eyes widened as the pieces began to click in his head.

"They think you've been kidnapped," he said, not taking his eyes off the mermaid – who didn't look up.

Eris had said she was waiting for someone to make a stupid mistake that would cause tense political relations to fall apart. Ariel had mentioned while they were in town that her father was none-too-fond of humans. And running away was something he was starting to categorize as a 'stupid mistake'.

"You're gotta be kidding." He continued to stare at the mermaid. "You ran away to be with your boyfriend and now your people are… what? Declaring war on the surface?" His voice rose in volume with each word, anger bubbling dangerously close to the surface.

"Hey!" Jim snapped, stepping between Jack and Ariel. "Leave her alone."

"This from someone who's never seen war," Jack muttered. He spared a quick glare at the younger man, then looked past him back to the mermaid. "Is that what's happening?"

Her eyes were clenched, possibly fighting back tears, as she nodded

Jack's glare faded a little, his thoughts a whirl as he continued to fit the pieces together in search of the full picture. Because something was still missing. He wasn't fond of politics, but he understood them. The other governors had seen to that.

"You have to be important," he said, thinking out loud. Jim and Sarah both stared at him. "Your people have done such a good job of hiding for three hundred years. They're not going to throw that away because one little mermaid goes missing. You're been gone less than three days and they're already declaring war. What are you, Ariel?"

Of course she said the one thing he really hoped she wouldn't say. Of course.

"I'm the youngest daughter of King Triton."

"A princess." Jack shook his head. "Typical."

"What?" Jim's stare turned onto Ariel. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think it mattered."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Don't book the church yet," he muttered, then turned back to Ariel before Jim could say anything else. "If this is personal, your father will be part of it, right?"

"Probably."

"Then all we have to do is get you two at the table and maybe we can…" he couldn't believe what he was about to say. "Maybe we can negotiate."

He didn't choke on the words. That seemed like a small miracle at the moment.

Before he could take a step in any direction his commlink chimed. Taking a deep breath he pulled the device from his belt.

"Please tell me you have good news," he said, rubbing his forehead.

"There's another one," Hiccup said.

For a moment Jack just stared at the commlink, wondering if he could wake up and this would all be a dream.

"Hiccup, we need to discuss your definition of 'good'."

"After we talk about our life choices," Hiccup countered. "Now get down here. You're the best fighter we've got."

#

Jack stopped talking and stretched across the foot of the bed, loosening the muscles of his back and legs, which had started to tense up from lying still.

The air of the bedroom was looser than he would have liked, personally. But he had given control of the thermostat to Rapunzel. So the thin layer of frost that spread across the blue comforter wherever his skin touched it lasted only a moment before it melted to nothing.

He picked two grapes from the bowl in the middle of the bed, tossing one in the air and catching it in his mouth. His teeth broke the skin with a satisfying crunch and the juice exploded over his tastebuds.

He was halfway through the second grape when Rapunzel, who had been sitting against the headboard, leaned forward.

"Well?"

Jack swallowed the grape and stretched out again, hands behind his head. He was probabwly having too much fun. "Well, what?

"What happened?"

Jack took a deep breath, then jumped to his feet. "Dunno."

He raised his arms above his head, stretching the oblique muscles.

Yup. Too much fun. It was a good thing his wife was behind him, so she couldn't see his grin.

"You don't know?"

He glanced back to see her green eyes were wide.

"But, you said… the scar on your leg!"

He grinned that she caught that detail. It had been months since they'd gone over his scars. And considering how emotional that night had been, he hadn't known how much she remembered.

"Concussion." He pretended to hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Actually, it was the back of my head. The last thing I remember is getting that call from Hiccup, then I woke up three days later. Hiccup says I grabbed onto one of the sea serpent's horns, but it threw me against the cliff face."

"And you don't remember any of it?"

He shook his head. "A few flashes, but they're muddled to say the least. And I think some of them are dreams I had while I was out. Which has to be a new level of pathetic, even for me. At 21 I'd had amnesia twice – or however you say it."

Rapunzel giggled, and Jack felt himself smile in response.

Expelling the air from his lungs, he sat back on the edge of the bed, this time closer to her.

"Here's what I've been told."

Rapunzel scooted closer to him, until their knees brushed. Absently Jack fingers of lock of her endless gold hair.

"There were three monsters total – a serpent, something that looks like a weird water wolf, and a giant lobster called a Leviathan. I vaguely remember that one, but that might be because they showed me a picture later. That's the one I went after. I don't know details, since Hiccup and Merida were preoccupied. Apparently I killed it and went to help Hiccup, who was fighting the serpent. Which lead to my concussion. I hit the cliff face then fell into the water. I was out cold by the time Merida dragged me to shore, and I didn't wake up for three days. Apparently she sat Triton and Ariel down and negotiated an agreement between them. At the time I didn't believe it, but I've seen her negotiate since then. She's good."

"So are you," Rapunzel said, bumping his leg with her knee.

Jack shrugged. "I'm passable. My wife's amazing, though. Makes me look pathetic."

She giggled, and blushed modestly.

"Anyway. Triton called off the war, Ariel and Jim didn't have to break up. For all I know, they're living happily ever after."

"You never checked up on them?"

Jack shook his head. "We never do. I mean, it's not something we talked about and decided: we just don't. Probably because all three of us were running away." He took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. "You don't usually go back even a step, since you're afraid of getting pulled back all the way."

"It's a good thing I didn't let you out of my sight," Rapunzel whispered. "You could have slipped through my fingers.

"Nah." Jack lifted their hands to press his lips against her knuckles. "I'd already stopped running by the time we got to Corona. I was just trying to hold onto you."

"Hack…" Her expression told him she was available for a kiss, and he leaned forward to kiss her briefly.

"Triton honored me for killing his pet lobster," he said, when he pulled back. "The leviathan was supposedly the deadliest creature in the oceans, so he said killing it was an act of valor."

"You sound surprised."

"I killed his deadliest weapon, and he said I was a hero."

"You are," Rapunzel said.

"I killed his lobster."

Rapunzel laughed under her breath, leaning forward to kiss him again. They lingered longer this time, and he suspected she was wordlessly telling him they'd been talking too long. He was inclined to agree… but after a minute he pulled back.

"You know the part I really wish I remembered?"

"Hmm?"

"Hiccup says I crawled inside the Leviathan."

At that her eyes opened, and she looked at him with sufficient surprise. "What?"

He nodded. "It had an armored hide. Hiccup says I went through a cut in its side and walked up the throat, and out of the mouth after it was dead."

Rapunzel paled, and he thought he saw a note of revulsion in her eyes.

"I really wish I knew what in the universe I was thinking. There's gotta be a better way to kill a lobster. Though that's probably why I never got the smell of dead fish out of my clothes."

Rapunzel reached out to touch the scar on his right arm – the reminder that he'd been injured by a porcelain doll. He still wasn't sure how he could ever live that one down.

"What about Merida?"

"Mostly uninjured. Hiccup's arm got cut up a little."

"I mean, how did she end up staying."

"She begged."

"I have a hard time picturing that."

"Normally, I would too," Jack agreed. "But, considering everything that happened while we were there, I can understand why she wouldn't want to stay. Not to mention Hiccup followed my suggestion… too soon. She helped wait tables the three days I was out. Like I said, she was begging to leave – she was just begging Hiccup, not her parents."

"At least you know it would have worked," Rapunzel said.

"That did make me feel better," he admitted. "At first I thought maybe we'd just keep her around for a few weeks, then Hiccup would be responsible, or she'd get homesick." He picked up another grape, glaring at it. "It figured out pretty quick that wasn't gonna happen."

"Poor thing," Rapunzel giggled.

"Eventurally I was more concerned with getting them together before I chocked on the sexual tension. It took them three years, Rapunzel. Of course, once they started dating it was only three or four months before they got married. I was caught between 'finally' and 'isn't that a little fast?'"

"What about Eris?"

Jack shook his head. "Gone by the time we reached orbit. I've only seen her a few times since then. I got the impression she doesn't find me as interesting as she used to. Last time I saw her was on Asgard, and she didn't even talk to me."

"I'm glad."

"Me, too," he said. He took a handful of grapes, eating them while he waited for Rapunzel's next question. Though it wasn't what he expected.

"What happened to the Stormfly?"

Jack was surprised how much that… hurt. It had been a while since he thought about the Stormfly. He sighed, looking down at the grape he was rolling between his thumb and forefinger.

"Destroyed," he said, the word barely making it past the lump in his throat. "It's… a really long story. For another time. But, to summarize, we were on Maldonia for shore leave—"

"Ambassador Naveen's planet?"

Jack nodded.

"You were the ones who helped stopped the uprising two years ago?"

"It was more of a power struggle, but yeah: that was us. And here's where it all starts to come around full circle, really. We ran into Naveen while we were on Maldonia, and he invited us to stay with him. He insisted he still owed me for saving his daughter. You already know what happened when the rebellion attacked the city, I'm guessing. They destroyed most of the ships in the city to prevent any of the nobles getting off world. The Stormfly was one of them."

"Oh, Jack… I'm sorry," she whispered.

Jack shrugged. They had all been hit hard. Their home, the one thing that let all of them keep running, had been destroyed before their eyes in a ball of flames so hot they'd felt it even from a hundred feet away.

"And Hiccup," Rapunzel realized. "The ship his father gave him."

Jack nodded. "It was his last connection to home. But the timing is what gets me. Because he and Merida had their first date a couple of nights early. And I always suspected he didn't want to admit how he felt about her because he was afraid to betray Astrid's memory.

"After everything settled down, Naveen offered to help us pay for a new ship. We didn't really want to accept, but we didn't have much choice. A few days later a Berk Mystery Class was delivered, and Hiccup named it…" he held a hand up, indicating for her to finish the sentence.

"The Night Fury."

"The Night Fury," he repeated. "About sixteen months before we found you. Which is a good thing, because I never could have hidden you in my shower on the Stormfly. So it all worked out in the end."

THE END

January 20th, 2014, 9:45pm

I just finished Among The Stars. As soon as I wrote THE END, and closed my notebook, I was struck with a strange hollowness. I've been working on ATS for the past 6 months, not including the initial one shot during Jackunzel week. For a story that was supposed to be four or five chapters (and probably should have stopped at 19), this has become a huge part of my life.

And it's been absolutely incredible. I feel like I writing has improved exponentially, and I've met so many wonderful people. Both people who commented or reviewed a few times, and others who have become dear friends

Admittedly, the Atlantis Arc spiraled into a disaster that I deeply regret. But I think I leanred a valuable lesson, and I'm glad that I pushed through it. I wanted to give you guys more for the finally, but I literally had no idea what to do for a sea monster battle. I sat with writer's block for weeks before I finally settled on this eding.

So, thank to everyone who stayed with me to this point.

Love, Song Of A Free Heart