Figuring and Figures

"Why would anyone want to kill me?" Hiccup wondered aloud.

Hiccup, Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Astrid all sat around Ruffnut's kitchen table. The tragic event of the night had killed the mood. After the vomit had been cleaned up and word had come from the hospital that Shelley was going to live, everyone else had gone home.

Fishlegs frowned. "Yeah. It's not like you've done anything to make anyone mad."

Astrid took a sip of leftover punch. "Let's not forget that he took down N.E.S.T. If anyone escaped from the roundup, they might want to get revenge on him."

"And," Snotlout chimed in, "let's not forget that Hiccup is a superhero at night."

"Well, so is Astrid! And most of you guys!" Hiccup protested. He had ditched the cape and the black mask and now his hair was spiked up in different directions.

"Yeah, we've stopped like, what? One convenience store hold up? Oh, and it was all thanks to your gadgets," Tuffnut pointed out.

"You shouldn't go back to your own house. Whoever tried to poison you might try to finish off the job when they find out that they've failed." Astrid started to drain her cup, thought better of it, and threw the remainder away. "I'm sorry your party got wrecked, Ruffnut."

"Are you kidding?! This is the most excitement I've had at one of these shindigs yet!"

"Hey, Astrid! Sweetie! Want me to drive you home?" Snotlout asked, flexing his muscles. Despite his recent change of lifestyle, he was still an obnoxious flirt who believed the Snotlouts of the world were a superiority.

Astrid shot a glare at him that would have ignited wet logs. "No. Your car will be quite full since you're taking Hiccup home with you."

"But-"

"No buts!"

…

A couple of nights later, Astrid was watching a rerun of Columbo in her living room when her cellphone rang. The screen read "NF". She had forgotten to change it to "Hiccup" since she now knew he was the Night Fury.

"Hello?" she asked, turning down the television so that the crazed laughs of the caught murderer, caught by a simple technicality, couldn't be heard over the line.

"Uh, Astrid?" Hiccup's voice squeaked like it did when he was frightened. "C-could you come over here?"

"What for?" she demanded. "It's eleven o'clock at night, for the love of Loki." A sudden thought struck her. "Toothless didn't get stuck in his dog door again, did he?" Two weeks ago, Hiccup had called her in a state of mild panic, begging for help, for such an emergency.

"No. I think there's someone trying to break into my house," he whispered.

"WHAT?"

"I think-" Hiccup started to repeat.

"I heard you the first time. I'll be right over." Hiccup was pretty decent at defending himself. After all, she had seen him scare away a whole yard of thugs at one time. But that was when he was a dragon and had both legs. Now, Astrid didn't even know if he could turn into the Night Fury.

She grabbed her coat, the gun that Hiccup had finally given back to her, and her car keys. Within minutes, she parked at the end of Hiccup's street and quietly stole her way across his front yard. She climbed over Hiccup's wooden backyard fence and hit the ground with a soft oomph. No lights were on in his house, which worried her. He was a notorious night owl and his house was usually lit up like New Berk City's square on New Year's Eve. Astrid held her gun straight in front of her. She was prepared to cock the hammer and fire at a moment's notice.

The need did not arise. No one was in the backyard. She glanced over and saw that the lock on Hiccup's shed was secure, so Astrid turned her attention to the back door, which was slightly cracked open.

Heart thumping, Astrid approached it, with weapon still held out in front of her. She nudged the wooden door open with her toe and cautiously stepped inside, ducking immediately as a large flying object whirled over her head. Since visibility was low, she prepared to fight back until Hiccup's voice stopped her.

"Oh! Sorry! I thought he came back." Hiccup helped her to her feet. One of his crutches was on the ground. He must have thrown it at her.

"I almost shot you!" she scolded him, looking him up and down for any signs of injury. "Are you trying to send me to an early grave? What happened?" Astrid jammed her gun back into its holster with the safety on and handed him back his crutch.

"Nice to know you care," Hiccup quipped sarcastically. "Didn't want you to think you were an inferiority in the superhero department since no one's tried to kill you in a couple of weeks. Toothless bit the intruder in the hand and chased after him. Sorry I bothered you."

"I was only watching television," she begrudgingly admitted her availability. "Did you get a glimpse of who it was?"

"No," Hiccup answered glumly. "It was too dark, and he wore a mask." He chewed on his bottom lip. "Toothless hasn't come back yet." His eyes clouded with worry.

As if hearing his name, Toothless came trotting in the door, a scrap of fabric in his jaws. "Toothless!" Hiccup cried, sinking down to give the Border Collie a big hug. "You bad, bad dog!"

"What's this?" Astrid played tug-of-war with Toothless for the scrap of fabric. When she finally wrenched it free from his possession, sticky dog slobber covered it. "Eww. He must have ripped it from the burglar's shirt or something. No guy would ever wear lace, so it must have been a woman."

Hiccup adamantly shook his head at the impracticality of her deduction. "Nope. They weren't wearing white."

"You could have seen it incorrectly. After all, it was dark and you were afraid," Astrid pointed out, annoyed at his lack of flexibility in understanding her reasoning.

"I'm positive, Astrid." Hiccup sighed, apparently as tired as she was because he gave up the argument. "Oh, well. Sorry for calling you out here for nothing."

"Yeah, that was a pretty rotten thing to do! I need my beauty sleep!" She punched him in the shoulder for emphasis.

"Ow! Yeah, right! I thought you were watching TV!"

"Are you going to be okay here by yourself?" she inquired, getting serious.

"Yes. I'll call Snotlout and ask him if I can bunk at his house – again." Hiccup was less than thrilled, and Astrid shuddered at the idea of what Snotlout's house might look like. Were all roommates imperfect?

"Get a good night's sleep, and Ruffnut and I will pick you up bright and early." Since Ruffnut had transferred departments, Astrid had taken to carpooling to make sure her slightly irresponsible friend made it to work.

Astrid did not sleep well that night. She spent half of the wee hours tossing and turning, and the other half dreaming about ghostly figures in white lace attacking Hiccup. Around five o'clock in the morning, she decided that sleep was too much of a liability and got up to begin filling out her never-ending pile of paperwork.

After finishing twenty forms, she showered and threw everything in her bag. After dragging the kicking and screaming Ruffnut out of her house, they picked up Hiccup, whose tousled hair and grey expression testified that he hadn't gotten a drop of decent sleep either. At least Hiccup had a sense of punctuality.

"Why did you come by so early?" Ruffnut wailed from shotgun position as Astrid drove them all to work. "Do you know how long it takes to braid this hair?!"

"Quit whining. I'll tell you when we get there. You and Tuffnut can have some hair-braiding bonding time together later."

Ruffnut gagged.

"Did you know your left door back here is held shut by duck tape?" Hiccup observed from the backseat. "That can't be safe. Has your car been inspected lately?"

Astrid glared at him in the rear view mirror. "Of course it's been inspected, and there's nothing wrong with it. My grandfather did the same thing!"

"Well, my grandfather smokes a pipe a day, but that doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with that!"

"There's nothing wrong with it!"

They spent the rest of the ride bickering over the condition of Astrid's car, Ruffnut throwing in helpful comments like "Don't worry, Hiccup! It's as safe as a collapsing bridge!" "If I die before we get there, I want Venus fly traps on my coffin!" and "I'd rather stand on a tight rope over Niagara Falls during an earthquake than ride in this deathtrap."

Somewhat annoyed, Astrid pulled the rest of the gang out of their offices and directed everyone into one of the Berk Police Department's meeting rooms.

"What do you need, Astrid?" Fishlegs asked, sitting in a chair and pulling out his laptop which he always brought to meetings such as this one..

"Good," Astrid said, nodding at the electronic device, "you'll need to use that later. I'm glad you brought it."

"What for? Can we get over the formalities so I can get back to my morning nap?" Snotlout kicked his feet up on the meeting room table. Thankfully, his sneakers were in almost prime condition, so no muck got on the table.

"Someone wants to either kill Hiccup, rob him, or at least get him out of the picture. Instead of waiting around trying to figure who's behind it, we're going to take the initiative and find them first."

"And that means what, exactly?" Ruffnut droned, twirling a pencil around her fingers with expertise.

Ignoring the question, Astrid continued, "Hiccup, do you know anybody who definitely hates you?"

"If we're not counting Mrs. McGinnis, the crazy cat lady who lives next door, then no," he supplied. "Even though I'm in forensics, I've handled tons of 'normal' detective cases."

"I was afraid of that," she said glumly. Now they would have to go about things the hard way. It was a good thing that the only case she happened to be working on at the present involved a fake dog psychic. "All right, here's the game plan. We're all going to split up and go through the records of ALL of Hiccup's previous cases."

"Do you want us to bring them back here?" Fishlegs asked.

Snotlout, down at his end of the table, started doing weight lifting with a thick binder someone had left on the table. "ALL of them? That will take ages!" he complained, already working up a sweat.

Astrid gritted her teeth. "Yes, Snotlout, all of them. We can't use this room for a long period of time. Someone's bound to come in here at one point or another and ask what we're up to. I don't want things getting out."

Hiccup cleared his throat. "Uh, I kinda forgot to mention it, but I found a new place for our nighttime activities' headquarters." When the twins, Fishlegs, and Snotlout had learned that Astrid was joining Hiccup in his crime-fighting efforts, they all insisted on being initiated into the team. The team needed a place to meet and the old burned-out factory was no longer suitable to their needs.

During the whole conversation, Hiccup had been fiddling with two scraps of metal and a spring. Now, he shoved them into his pocket. "A guy I know owns a repair shop downtown. He's agreed to let me have the basement on the condition that I don't blow the place up."

"Aww!" the twins chorused, disappointed. "What's the fun in that?"

"Great!" Astrid exclaimed. "What's its name?"

"Gobber's Fix It Up Shop."

"Gobber's Fix It Up Shop?" Fishlegs drummed his fingers against his laptop, now closed. "It think I've heard of it."

"Frankly, I'd be surprised if you haven't heard of it." Hiccup grinned. "Gobber might even be louder than my dad!"

"Nope!" Snotlout declared. "When she's mad, Astrid has the loudest, the most – ARGH!" His sentence ended abruptly, having nothing to do with that fact that Astrid was twisting his arm at a weird angle.

"When I'm mad I have the loudest what?" Astrid asked sweetly.

"Nothing!" Snotlout squeaked.

"That's what I thought." Astrid dropped his arm. "Everyone be at Gobber's place in a couple of hours. Hiccup, bring your case folders." She headed towards the door, dismissing the meeting.

"Wait! Astrid!" Hiccup called after her as she walked down the hallway, his crutches clicking across the floor in his haste to catch up with her.

"What is it?" she asked, slowing her pace.

"I couldn't sleep last night, so I called the girl who might want to room with you."

"Really? What's she like?" Astrid vaguely recalled the same sort of conversation about roommates happening in A Study in Scarlet. This was going to be interesting, she decided.

"A magician never reveals his secrets," Hiccup intoned dramatically. "You'd have to meet her."

"Oh. Well, when can I?"

As they entered the busy office room were their desks were, Hiccup smirked. "Now. She's been assigned to Ruffnut's old desk."

"What?" It was true. A blonde with wild hair leaned back in the swivel chair that Ruffnut used to occupy, dangerously testing its mobility. All black clothing, combat boots, and fingerless gloves set off her "gangsta" look.

"Hiccup!" Ruffnut's desk's occupant greeted the red head with a mock salute. "Whatcha been up to?"

"Nothing much, Camzi. This is Astrid."

The blonde grinned and stuck out a fist for Astrid to bump without getting up from her lax position. "Nice to meet you, Astrid! Hiccup has told me all about you! My name is Camicazi Burglar, unless you're Hiccup and too lazy to say the whole thing. But you can call me ZE GREAT CAMICAZI!"

"Uh, I think I'll pass on the last one." Astrid wasn't sure how she felt about the girl yet.

"Think about it," Camicazi insisted. "You can always change your mind."

"You might have to come to terms with your disappointment," Astrid countered.

Camicazi sighed. "Oh, it was worth a try. Where am I going to live?"

Astrid bristled. "Nadder Lane. The neighbors are nice and the street's not too busy."

"Fantastic!" Camicazi exclaimed.

Astrid wondered how Camicazi could love it so quickly when she hadn't even seen it. "So how did you and Hiccup meet? I've never heard of you, no offense." Astrid was surprised to find an edge in her own voice.

"Dog training class thingy in high school for delinquent dogs. He helped me sneak into the school library when it was locked to get back a textbook the ex-librarian stole from me."

Astrid rounded on Hiccup. "You snuck into a library?"

He looked sheepish and scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, about that..."

"I knew the twins were a bad influence on you."

"He got it from me," Camicazi boasted. "I moved out of town right after that semester, so we haven't talked in ages. Oh, and here's your watch back." She dangled Astrid favorite watch that she had been wearing in between two fingers.

"Wha-?" Astrid snatched the timepiece back. Now she could see where the other blonde got her last name! "How did you get this?" she demanded.

Hiccup laughed guiltily. "I forgot to mention. She has a habit of liberating things from people and then handing them back."

The police force hired a thief?

"By the way, did something happen last night?" Camicazi asked, twirling a pen around her fingers carelessly, with way more skill than Ruffnut. They were the nimble fingers of a pickpocket. "You seemed worried."

"Someone broke into Hiccup's house last night," Astrid said grimly, "and before that, they tried to kill him."

A/N: Thank you for your reads, follows, favorites, and reviews! I have some surprises in store for the coming chapters... heheh...

Rider.