A/N Hello, lovely readers!

So, how are you guys? I've had a TERRIBLE few weeks...

But that doesn't matter right now, Chapter Ten Time!

Review Replies:

The Wizard Rider: Well, that depends on what you mean by "stupid"...

Zoha Ven: Hahaha you'll see. And I'll think about your ideas. :-) And OH MY THOR! YES! I love it when Percy or Hiccup get jealous too!

BlackSwanGirl: AwwwwwthankyouIcan'tmakespaceseither!

GinnyPotter(Guest): Thank you!

WARNING! SAD SAD SAD CHAPTER INVOLVING REFERENCE TO SELF HARM AND SUICIDAL THOUGHTS!

Chapter Ten

Don't You Cry For Me

That was interesting. That was very interesting. That was very very interesting.

I stared off into space while I thought about the words on the wall in the cave. I couldn't stop wondering who had written them, though I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew exactly who had written them. After all..."Her bones will lie in the Chamber forever" was only ever written by one person. On a school wall. In blood...

But for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how on earth he had known to do that. If my suspicions were correct, then Berk wasn't our only stop in the timeline. We would be making a stop somewhere else. Which bugged me. As much as I hated it at home, and loved this adventure...well. some things are just too much for anyone to handle, and if I had to watch another hero and not be able to tell them of terrible things in their future, for fear of disrupting the story...well, I didn't know what I'd do. I wasn't a Half-Blood, I knew that. But it seemed as though my fatal flaw was as strong as any Half-Blood's.

The sound of Hiccup dropping something pulled me out of my thoughts and I smirked gently at his cute fumbling while he picked it up and put it back. I was spending the afternoon in the forge, with Hiccup. Toothless was outside napping. Why? Just for the fun of it...and also because it was cool to watch Hiccup work. I had always liked the idea of blacksmithing, and Hiccup was actually stronger than most people assumed, from what I was seeing.

My thoughts started to drift again. Yesterday hadn't really been that eventful after the Changewing incident. I had been taken straight to Gothi, and I explained to her that I had learned something that might be dangerous to the dragon riders, and so had faked an injury to prevent them from discovering it. I was so thankful she bought it. Though she had requested (mimed, actually) that I tell them about it when I thought it might be safe. I had emphatically agreed. That night I had "recovered" from my "concussion" enough to tell a story. So I had told the story of Princess Merida. To be honest, when that movie had first come out I was obsessed. I had bought stickers, bags, cups, the movie itself, and practically memorized the junior novelization. And I remembered it well enough to tell a nice, convincing story.

Another clatter caught my attention. Hiccup was cursing under his breath as he picked up the short sword he'd been sharpening.

"You okay, Hiccup?"

He glanced at me in surprise. I guess he'd forgotten I was there.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just...nothing."

I gave him a look, running my gaze over his hands and arms. He certainly seemed fine.

Wait.

Something was off.

I saw it in the way his eyes wouldn't meet mine. In the way he unconsciously turned his arms, rubbing them against the inside of his sleeves. And his sleeves were so long, too! And he hadn't even rolled them up. It was hot in the forge. But...then again, I hadn't taken off my jacket. For the exact same reason Hiccup wasn't showing anyone his arms, I assumed.

"Hiccup."

"Yeah?" He looked up.

"Show me your wrists."

For a split second, I saw the same look of panic in his eyes that I wore whenever someone asked me about the marks on my arms.

"W-what?"

I got up.

"You heard me, Haddock."

I advanced toward him. He backed up. Soon enough he was backed right against the wall, giving me the same look I had worn once when my best friend had made me show him my scars. The caged look. The terrified look.

"W-why are you-I don't-aah, this isn't-"

I cut him off.

"Hiccup." My voice was gentler then it had been a few moments ago. "Look."

I shrugged off my jacket, ignoring his widening eyes, then raised my left arm and slowly began peeling back the sleeve. Hiccup's eyes widened further when he saw them. Line after line after line. Parading around my skin in haphazard rows. White scars, pink scars. Several red ones. A few purple.

"See?" I watched him carefully. "I know."

His eyes dropped to the ground and I could see him take a deep breath. Then he reached for the hem of his shirt.

What? I blinked. That is not what I was expecting.

It fell away from him, and he clutched it in his left hand, not meeting my gaze.

I stared. Oh, gods.

He was surprisingly muscled, but that's not what I stared at. His scars were...more extensive. White lines crisscrossed his body, and the thickest ones, the ones that indicated the most damage, were over his wrists. Both of them. Obviously re-opened many times, ripped and torn until his skinny wrists were mostly bundles of scar tissue around bone.

It was then, I think, that I realized something.

For years, I had been obsessed with this place, these people, yes. But I had mostly been focused on their on-screen personas. I had never really even thought about how they might feel, or act, off-screen. How much they might suffer. What their lives might be like. What their families might be like. I had only ever really focused on their adventures. They had been legends to me. Hiccup had been a legend to me. Not really feeling much other than he might display on screen. But seeing this, this evidence of his clear suffering (I mean, in the first movie it had been clear he expected pain, he expected people to hurt him, and he was used to the emotional pain he was feeling)...Hiccup was a person. He was not a legend yet. He was a hero, certainly, but he was no god. He was no supernatural. He was human. And humans felt. Humans felt joy. Humans felt love. But most often, humans felt pain. Hiccup had obviously been drowning in that pain.

Hiccup was a person, too.

I took off my glasses, knowing that the tears that were gathering in my eyes would fog them up. I looked at him.

"Hiccup."

He looked at me, and I saw that tears were gathering in his eyes, too. Those beautiful green eyes that I had dreamed about for ten years straight. I took hold of one of his damaged wrists.

"My first time was curiosity. You?"

He glanced down at his wrist in my fingers before replying. "Accident."

My heart broke for him. Seeing the evidence of his pain was killing me.

"And it felt good. Didn't it?"

My fingers moved against the white skin of the massive scar that had all but replaced his wrist. His eyes skipped back up to mine.

"Yeah. It did. It just felt like..."

"Like a weight was lifted off your shoulders."

"Yeah. It was just so heavy, and then every time I...you know."

"Cut. You feel lighter. Freer."

"Able to survive."

"Hiccup..."

His lips were trembling, and he pressed them together.

"It's not a good feeling. To be unable to stop."

"No. Songbird, it was so hard."

"After Toothless?"

"Yeah."

"You'd reach for the knife, then stop, and think that you couldn't do it. Then you'd pick it up, and do it anyway."

Hiccup pulled his wrist out of my grasp. I sighed a bit. It had felt nice to try to comfort him. Plus he was warm and his wrist was soft.

"So how did you stop?" He pulled his shirt back on.

I dropped my gaze to by boots. They were blurry. I sighed and rolled my sleeves back down.

"I didn't."

Hiccup's eyes snapped back up to mine.

"What?"

"I didn't stop. I never have." I put my glasses back on, then realized that that wasn't the best idea. I took them off again.

"So...if you never stopped.." Hiccup began.

A tear slipped down my face. "Yeah?"

"You've been thinking about...the next move?"

I let out a choked laugh. "The next move? Hiccup, that's all I can think about some days. It's all I feel is an option. I am alone. All the time. I feel that even God isn't listening. At home, I'm just...a ghost. The most alive I've felt in years is when I met Per-..uh, Sea Farer and Wisdom Speaker. When I came here...this has been the most welcome I've felt anywhere ever since my...never mind. The point is, for five years, the next move has been the only thing I wanted!"

I stopped, horrified. Tears streaked down my face and dripped onto my neck.

Hiccup stood and gazed at me with an inscrutable expression.

I guiltily dropped my gaze back to my boots and wiped my face with my sleeve.

"I'm sorry. You don't need to know that. It doesn't matter."

Hiccup laughed gently.

"Doesn't matter? Songbird, all I could think about for years was ending it. Maybe if you feel okay here on Berk...you could stay. For a while. If you need to?"

I looked back up into his eyes. So honest and sincere. But stained with old sadness and tears that hadn't fallen. I didn't have the heart to tell him the truth. I had to leave, or I would die.

"That would be nice," I told him honestly.

Hiccup sat down heavily on a wooden stool. "Well, you told me about your problems. I should probably return the favor."

"Hiccup, you don't have to-"

"Hey. If you had to suffer, then obviously so do I."

"And why's that, Haddock?"

He chuckled at me.

"We're friends, aren't we? Friends suffer together."

I rolled my eyes fondly. "Fine." I sat across from him on another stool. I had a feeling I already knew what he was going to tell me, but I wanted to hear him talk.

"I'm...not a typical Viking. And...about when I was seven, Snotlout, Ruffnut and Tuffnut noticed."

"Did they hit you?"

"Yeah."

"How often?"

"Pretty much all the time."

"Hiccup..."

"But that wasn't the worst part."

"Hiccup, didn't your father do anything?"

Hiccup snorted. "Yeah, the first few times it happened, he told me to hit back. I did, and they hit harder. I stopped telling him after that."

I watched him. He wouldn't meet my gaze, but took a deep breath before continuing.

"But the worst part was that..I mean, I know I'm just a total fish bone, but it was just...the disgust that I could see in people's eyes when they'd look at me. It was awful."

"Be glad they didn't totally ignore you."

"No, but...they pretty much did."

"Hiccup, I am so sorry you had to go through that."

"It's fine."

I laughed.

"Hiccup, I would use that same excuse for years and years and years, and I know how an untrue 'I'm fine' sounds. It's NOT fine."

"Songbird-"

"Oh, no you don't, Dragon Boy. You are going to listen to me."

He looked up into my eyes.

"Uh huh?"

"Yes. First. Did they apologize?"

"Yeah, they did."

"Do you still feel hurt?"

"Always."

"Then, Hiccup, it is NOT FINE. You need to let it out sometimes, and I don't mean you should start cutting again. We may be friends, but I'm a travelling storyteller, remember? I won't be here forever. You need to talk to someone else. Maybe Astrid."

He glanced away. "A-Astrid? Why?"

"Look, she cares about you. They all care about you, even if they don't show it all that well. Trust me, I'm very good at reading people." I inwardly reflected on the complete truthfulness of that statement. It was a lot more than it sounded like.

Hiccup glanced down at his wrists, now hidden again by his sleeves.

"Okay."

"Great." I smiled at him, and decided to read him. Just to see if he was okay.

I slowed my breathing and opened my mind, checking Hiccup's emotions. The whiplash made me choke up. So much pain.

On a sudden impulse, I lurched forward and wrapped my arms around him. He stiffened in my grasp, then relaxed, and hesitantly, slowly, his skinny arms came up and wrapped around me.

"Thank you, Songbird," he breathed.

I laughed softly. "What are friends for, Haddock?"

A curious warble echoed from the door, and we broke apart to see Toothless watching us.

"Hey, Toothless." I smiled at the dragon. Hiccup rubbed the back of his neck and wouldn't meet the dragon's eye. That seemed odd, but I didn't question it.

I sat back.

"Better hurry up and get those sharpened before Gobber gets back, huh Hiccup?" I smirked.

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah."

"Hey."

Hiccup looked up as I sat across from him at the table in the Great Hall.

"Hey, Songbird. It's Sea Farer's turn to tell a story tonight, isn't it?"

"Yep. But it'll be a while. I just wanted to show you something."

I pulled out my iPod and earbuds.

"What are those?"

"Well, you know, I probably should have told you before. This is a machine that records sound, like when you write a word down? It's recorded. This thing records sound. And these connect to it and bring the sound directly into your ears. Like this." I handed the earbuds to him and directed them to his ears.

"This feels weird."

I laughed. "It felt weird the first twenty times. Then they were pretty much glued into my ears. Music was most of what I live for."

"This is for music?" Hiccup looked carefully at the iPod screen, which I had turned on and was taking to the song that I wanted to show him.

"Yeah. This was one of the best. And...it's honestly how I feel about you. You're a great friend, Hiccup. Great friend, great guy, hero, you know?"

"Oh, be quiet."

I smirked and hit PLAY.

I couldn't hear the song, but I knew it by heart.

Close your tired eyes, relaxing them.

Count from one to ten and open them.

All those heavy thoughts will try to weigh you down, but not this time.

Hiccup's eyes fluttered shut as he swayed slightly, feeling the music in his soul. That's what I loved about music. You felt it everywhere.

Way up in the air, you're finally free.

And you can stay up there, right next to me.

All this gravity will try to pull you down, but not this time.

I watched his face as the song went on.

When the sun goes down, and the lights burn out,

Then it's time for you to shine

Brighter than the shooting star, so shine no matter where you are

Fill the darkest night, with a brilliant light,

'Cause it's time for you to shine

Brighter than a shooting star, so shine no matter where you are, tonight.

Tears leaked down Hiccup's face as the second verse began. When the song ended, he quickly wiped his face and rubbed at his eyes.

"Thanks." He muttered. He handed me back the earbuds.

I smiled sadly at him. "I would say I love you, but I think that would be taken the entirely wrong way. So I can say you're an amazing friend."

Hiccup laughed. "Thanks."

We settled back to watch Percy try to tell the story of how Mrs O'Leary and Mrs. Jackson met for the first time.

A/N Oh my Thor, I am sorry about how depressing that was. I've been trying to explore Sarah's backstory more, and this just happened...

I've been trying to get longer chapters, too, so that's the first long-ish chapter you'll get.

Thank you for reading this!

The song in this chapter was "Shooting Star" by Owl City.