Chapter Four
Dashing Through the Snow

December 16th

Winter wouldn't be winter without sledding.

That was a simple, unarguable fact. Somebody try and tell Captain Haddock differently, and there would be a fist where their head was supposed to be. Who said he was too old for sledding? There were few things in life that Haddock was too old for. Sledding was definitely not one of them.

The problem was, who to go with?

Oh, Tintin was the obvious answer, but that didn't solve the problem; you couldn't go sledding with just one person. Not tobogganing, anyway. That woodlouse Wagg would agree to come, of course, but heaven forbid he joined them. If anything could ruin Christmas, it would be Wagg.

It was awful, really. Especially because the Captain had just found a toboggan in the cellar. The thing was an antique, probably a hundred years old, but it looked perfectly operational and was perfectly tempting.

Haddock wanted to go sledding.

He wasn't facing the front door—he was in the breakfast room, though the door to the foyer was open— so when the doorbell rang and Nestor opened it up, he couldn't see who was coming in. But the sound of two sets of footsteps, all but in sync, was answer enough.

"Good morning, Nestor," he heard a clipped British voice say.

"Good morning, Captain," came an almost identical voice.

Haddock was about to return their greetings with an all-too-characteristic snarl. But at the last second, a thought occurred to him. It was a sneaky thought, true, but that didn't make it any less viable.

"Good morning, old friends!" he called, getting to his feet and walking up to the Thompson twins. "What fair breeze blows you here?"

Thomson took a moment to sweep a dusting of snow from the brim of his bowler hat. "Well…er… it's like this… Interpol sent us with information regarding the recent—"

"Grand, grand." Putting a hand on Thomson's back, he began to walk in the direction of the parlour, ushering them in. "You have to tell me all about it later. Come in, have a drink."

The twins exchanged confused glances, but weren't duly concerned. "Why—why thank you, old man. Very, er, snowy weather we've been having lately, isn't it?"

"Oh yes. Er, tell me, Thompson—"

"Er, that's Thomson without a 'P.' As in snorkel."

"Oh." The Captain stared at him for a moment, unsure of what to do, and then shook himself mentally. "Yes, Thomson. So, er… have you ever been sledding?"

/

"Faster!" Tintin screamed. "Go faster!"

The Captain tried to respond, but between the wind hitting him smack in the face, and his hysterical laughter, speech was practically impossible. Behind Tintin sat the two Thompsons, clutching on to each other for dear life, their eyes as wide as dinner plates, looking for all the world like skiers watching an avalanche roaring towards them.

The four of them were crammed onto a toboggan, flying down the side of what was probably the biggest hill within 50 km. Trees whizzed by, speed reducing them to scraggly blurs. Wind and snow blasted in their faces, as cold and hard as ice.

And it was exhilarating.

Snowy barked, clambering over Tintin's lap. He was poking his head out from behind Haddock's back, facing the wind, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

"Turn!" Tintin squealed through his laughter, his voice painfully shrill in Haddock's ear.

"Whoooooops!"

Eyeing the rock in the centre of the path, Haddock gripped the wheel with gloved hands and forced the toboggan into a right-angle turn it had probably never been designed to do. One of the Thompsons let out a very un-manly screech.

"Wahoo!" Haddock screamed. The sound quickly dissolved into snorts of laughter.

"Captain! Tree!" Tintin squeaked.

"What tree?" the Captain wheezed, risking a backward glance at Tintin, suddenly aware of something like panic in Tintin's voice.

His gloved hand shot out, pointing. "That one!"

Time seemed to slow. The Captain felt a sinking feeling in his gut as he turned and saw the massive pine, previously unnoticed, standing straight in the middle of his path. Getting larger and larger.

"Abandon ship!" he roared, letting go of the wheel and jumping straight up out of his seat. His gut lurched, and then he felt his foot make contact with something hard and round. Like a walking stick. Snowy began howling. The Captain was vaguely aware of the two Thompsons pitching out of their seats, and realised that Tintin had taken hold of his leg. There was a hair-rising moment where they were all hovering in mid-air, and then they collapsed all on top of each other, a giant tangle of coats, dog, and bowler hats, as the sled erupted into a glorious firework of bright red splinters against the giant pine.

/

"That. Was. Brilliant."

The Captain shook his head dog-like, scattering any remaining drops of melted snow off his hair and beard. Tintin curled up protectively around his cup of cocoa, shielding the mug from the flying water. Their faces were still rosy from the wintery adventure; their eyes still sparkling with excitement remembered.

"It was," Tintin admitted. He blew softly on his cocoa before taking a careful sip. "Sledding's fun. Good fun."

"And the Thompsons! Their faces!"

"Inviting them was downright cruel, you know, Captain." His tone was reproachful, but he grinned as he said it; the Captain knew that he wasn't being serious. At least, he wasn't upset; whether or not he was being serious was a little hard to tell. But it was often hard to tell with Tintin.

"Yes… well, hopefully they'll be out of the hospital soon."

There was a more or less sober moment where they were silent and thought about that, and then Haddock broke in jauntily, "We should really do it more often."

"Oui; we should."

"We'd need a new sled, of course…"

"How long had you had that one?"

"How long have—what, that thing?" The Captain stared at Tintin for a moment, and then snorted. "That sled was probably two hundred years old."

"So you got it when you were, what, six or seven?" Tintin asked, his face the picture of innocence.

"Cheeky little sod." The Captain made his way to the arm-chair next to the sofa where Tintin was reclining. He fell into it with a soft grunt, eyeing his coffee mug to make sure nothing spilled. "I had a sled when I was seven," he added, cocking his head thoughtfully. "I remember the day I got it. It was a couple weeks after my birthday… I couldn't wait to try it out. Not as if we get a whole lot of snow in England, but, you know, it turned out to be a white winter. I spent a lot of time on the hills, just going up and down… up and down…"

There was a long, awkward silence, where the Captain snapped back to reality, suddenly aware of the dreamy quality his voice and eyes had adopted. Tintin was looking at him bemusedly.

"It sounds like you had fun," he said, the corners of his lips curling into a supressed smile.

"Ah, well." He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "That was, er, forever ago." Trying to ignore his burning cheeks, the Captain waved his hand dismissively. "Uh, so…" Change the subject, Archie. "So did, uh, you do anything… like that? You know. Go sledding with your family or anything?

"Me?"

Haddock snorted. "No, Snowy."

Snowy's ears pricked up at the mention of his name, but after a moment, realising that nobody was offering him any food, he let his head droop again.

Tintin stared down blankly into his cup of hot cocoa, as if he would find the answer in the creamy chocolate. "Er… why do you ask?"

"Just wondering." He was relieved at how casual he made been able to make his tone sound. Because, truth was, Haddock wasn't just wondering. He really, really wanted to know.

"Oh, I don't know. Not that I have any memory of." He took a long sip of his cocoa, carefully avoiding the Captain's eyes.

Haddock stared at Tintin disbelievingly. "Not that you remember?"

Tintin shook his head.

"But – blistering barnacles, you don't just forget about that sort of thing." A small, inner voice was telling Haddock to stop now, to look at how upset Tintin was getting, to backpedal while he still could, but he ignored it completely. "You mean to say you have no childhood memories of sledding? What, your, your parents didn't ever take you? Was there no snow or something? Where were you even raised?"

"I never went sledding."

"But that's just weird. I mean, everybody goes sledding."

"I said, I never went sledding."

Tintin had an expressive face. He had to, because without it, he didn't look scary, tough, sexy, scholarly, anything; just like a rather pleasant twelve-year-old. But Tintin could change his expression in a heartbeat. He rarely did it on the Captain, but when he did, it made Haddock remember that this pleasant, twelve-year-old boy fought crime. And was good at it. And could be absolutely frightening. The transformation now from slightly confused, to upset, to downright chilling, made Haddock's blood run cold.

"But... but why?"

Tintin's voice was cold. Devoid of emotion except for reticence and quiet, hidden anger. "I never. Celebrated. Christmas."

Snowy noticed his master's change of mood and growled softly, not sure who he was growling at, but experience made him well aware that there was somebody who needed to back off, or else.

The Captain was beginning to become aware of this, too. He was shaken, but annoyance was mounting inside of him, too, angry words bubbling and boiling in his skull like water inside a scalding-hot kettle, at any moment about to be let loose in an hour-long rant. What had he done? He was just trying to be friendly, maybe he got carried away, but thundering typhoons, that was no reason to—

Is he angry at me, or his parents?

That thought seemed to change everything.

Haddock suddenly felt rather as if he were wilting.

He still wanted to be angry at him. It was one of those emotions that he resorted to whenever he was confused or overwhelmed, since he understood anger well. But he couldn't be. His heart twisted a little, and he just felt…

"I'm sorry," he said, quietly.

"It's okay," Tintin replied, and he seemed to deflate. He didn't look like a crime-fighting hero anymore. He just looked young. Young and tired. "It's been a long day," he said quietly. "I… I think I'm going to go up to my room."

"Alright then."

Tintin didn't respond. He reached down to scoop up Snowy, and walked slowly towards the door, each step hesitant, as if he thought he was maybe leaving something behind. But he didn't stop. He stood in the doorway for a moment, just a heartbeat, and then shut the door.

"I'm sorry," Haddock whispered, when the door had closed and Tintin was well out of hearing. "I just wanted to know."

Author's Note: Poor Tintin… *sniff* What on earth happened to him?

Dang it, I wish there was snow here… I want to go sledding… but a review would make up for the fact that it's so depressing around here. In fact, it would make my day! :D