Two minutes after the clock read 6:15, Hiccup glanced up from a textbook at the kitchen clock for at least the hundredth time that evening. He wasn't absorbing anything from the book, or even precisely sure that this page had anything to do with an assignment. Nevertheless, he turned it, since it had been 10 minutes since he had last. His father probably wasn't noticing how distracted his son was anyways, and spoke for the first time since they cleaned up dinner only to grumble, "You're shaking the table.

Hiccup quit impatiently bouncing his leg. "Sorry."

This time of night was the most regular "bonding" that was shared, though it usually took place in exactly this way; Hiccup attempting homework, and his father shuffling through notes and reports from work. It still maintained some consistency of their relationship, though, and words weren't necessary for either to feel satisfied with an interaction. In the case of this night, Hiccup was thankful that he wasn't expected to converse about his uneventful day, but eager to know if there was any news about Merida unexpectedly returning. From Stoick's silence, there apparently wasn't.

A startling ring erupted from the home phone in the living room.

Stoick took little notice, but Hiccup glanced between the phone and his father before the second ring.

"Aren't you going to answer that?"

His father looked up quizzically and responded, "Aren't you going to let me do it myself?"

Stoick stood and moved to the phone so painfully slowly, and didn't speak until a few seconds after picking it up.

"Really. Where?"

"Well, good. I told you I didn't know anything about it… Then trust me next time."

Before the phone was laid on the receiver, Hiccup asked, "Who was that?"

"Gobber. The madman found his hedge clippers in the hedge."

Hiccup's shoulders fell. He could ask him specifically about any news on Merida, but what good would it do to make it obvious he was so curious? This was supposed to have been discrete. Toothless had been moving about restlessly and nearly tripped Stoick while running in front of him. "You and this dragon, today…"

"Sorry, I guess he's jittery," Hiccup replied, feeling the same way.

"Maybe you two need to take a walk, then."

It sounded as though he was beginning to bother his father, but that was fine by Hiccup, since it might ease his worry to take the advice. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I will. I'll go on a walk with Toothless." Stoick turned to watch him leave, possibly realizing the sun had gone down an hour before, but doing nothing to stop them.

Hiccup stepped out into the foggy air. By then, the watch he wore read 6:24. Seeing as she was constantly late to class and took joy in toying with him, it would be no surprise to find her behind schedule in the same place he left her. Toothless moved immediately toward the forest and Hiccup followed.

From the bottom of the forest floor to the visible parts of the tree carapace, there was plenty of space for her to be. Though, he saw it all without any sign she had ever been there. Hiccup called her name, first as a projected whisper, eventually an irritated shout. It was getting close total darkness, so finding the right way out of the trees was a bit more complicated than usual. Passing headlights helped him find the road.

He had been the last person to talk to a missing girl twice now. That wouldn't be a problem, though, if he could just find her the second time too.

Hiccup peeked in the window of his home to see his father was nowhere around the living room, hopefully in his own bedroom. If careful and fast enough, Hiccup could be back out of the house in a few minutes. Toothless pushed in the door as soon as it was open, and they both made fast towards their room. Hiccup started his computer and impatiently stared until it finally booted. The clock was at 7:08 now. It would be way too early for him to remain in his room for the night, so Plan B had to either be quick or wait some hours. He clicked the "Find my Phone" bookmark as soon as the browser would open.

The point dropped on the map. She (or at least, his phone) was over two miles away already. He dropped his face into his hand. "Jesus…" There had been no reason to trust she would keep a promise. Why did he bother making one? "God damn it. Really?" It might take an hour to catch up on his own, and if he waited, she could get even further. There was one more option. He walked back out of his room for the landline.

Jack answered. "Yeah?"

"Can you drive somewhere right now?"

"Oh, it's you. Yeah, I was actually about to get some food. What phone are you calling from?"

He ignored the question. "I need a favor, no questions asked."

Jack sighed before saying, "Go ahead."

"Pick me up, take me toward the highway, await further instruction."

"The highway." Hiccup almost reiterated, 'No questions asked' before Jack ended his pause. "Sure. Why not."

"Hurry."

He hung up the phone just as Stoick stepped back into the room.

"Oh, dad. Um." Hopefully running in plain sight would work as well as hiding… "I'm going somewhere with Jack real quick."

His father looked oddly back. "Now?"

Asking for permission was not an option. He put on the jacket he'd just taken off. "I'll be back before 10. More like 9:30. Real quick."

Stoick rubbed his face and started back out of the room. "Take your phone."

"Of course, I'll… I'll go get it…"

Hiccup ran out again when Jack pulled up four minutes later. "We can do your thing first," Jack said, "but I'm still getting Wendy's."

"Whatever, just go. Fast."

"I get it, Gotta Go Fast."

They reached the end of the road at the forest and headed right for the highway.

Jack surely noticed how odd he was acting. "So, I know it's no questions asked, but you're totally welcome to explain what's going on."

"Well, it's… I need to…" Hiccup didn't want to or know how make sense of the situation, but broke it down to the essentials. "I might know where Merida is."

"What? That girl?"

"And with luck, we're picking her up in a minute."

"We? What, did she call you up for a ride?"

Hiccup rolled down his window to squint at the dark. "Practically the opposite."

"What does that even mean?"

"You've asked, like, five questions already." It was useless trying to see anything out there. Even on the highway the lights left plenty of dark spaces along the side of the road.

"Okay, well, we're on the highway." He threw a glare at Hiccup. "I await further instruction."

"Just… keep going." A minute passed quietly. Only a few cars passed the other way and cast yellow light from the left. Hiccup's heart and mind were racing wondering if this could possibly work, then stopped when a blue light flashed from the right. "Stop!"

"Shit, Hiccup!" Jack startled, and started pulling to the shoulder. "Don't scare me when I'm driving, goddamn it."

"Sorry," Hiccup muttered absentmindedly, seeing no more light, but watching where it had been. He got out while the car still inched forward, and ran toward what he'd seen. A few dozen feet from the car, and he spotted her face turning up, her wide eyes reflecting like a deer's. Naturally, she bolted. He could hear Jack call from behind, but listened to the chase instead.

Hiccup could barely see her, but could sense the right direction, and moved as quickly as his bad leg allowed. Even that was hardly beyond speed walking on the uneven terrain in the full dark. As he realized he had no hope of catching up to her, Jack appeared sprinting on his right and threw a blast of ice some meters ahead of Merida that flashed like lightning. When a gleaming snowbank seemed to appear out of nowhere, she tried to turn on her heel, but instead planted her foot straight onto the ice surrounding it. She slid into the pile in a second. The two chasers closed the gap left between themselves and her before she could get her face out of the snow, let alone her feet on the ground.

"What - what the hell is this?" She exclaimed.

Jack took hold and hoisted her up by her arm as he said, "The hair isn't just a cool dye job."

Merida let out a quiet whine and smacked Jack's shoulder, making him release her. Hiccup tilted his head and glanced at Jack, who took a wary step back from her. She looked at Hiccup with a frown, making it clear he'd better not take a step closer, and simply asked, "How?"

Hiccup held his hands to the sides. "It's called 'Find my Phone'?"

She threw her head back. "Och, aye."

"How did that help you find her?" Jack asked.

"I can explain on the way." He looked at Merida. "So, are you coming compliantly, or...? Because, you know, there's more ice where that came from."

"Hey," Jack interjected, "I'm not a weapon."

Merida held her hands up in satiric surrender and walked.

Jack, though, kept his promise. Minutes later, they had parked in nearly empty lot. "Don't try anything funny, I put the child-lock on in the back," he told Merida. "And let's keep our hands to ourselves, kiddos." Hiccup glared at Jack as he left the car.

An all-consuming silence followed.

Hiccup tried not to move, but glanced at Merida through the mirror. She stared out her window. Her arms crossed, then one rubbed her shoulder.

"You're not hurt, right?," he asked her. "You fell on the ice pretty hard."

"Weren't you threatening me with it a minute ago?"

"Just seemed like the best way to convince you not to run." He wanted to tell her it was for her own good, but he already felt enough like a captor.

"You already won, I'm not gonna bother fighting more."

He turned around to look at her. "Won? What did I win?"

Merida said nothing, but uncrossed her arms to gesture where they were.

"That's not what this is," he sighed. It was easier when she was angry than silent. "I'm not fighting against you. I'm trying to do what seems like the right thing."

"People don't do the 'right thing', they do things that make them feel better."

She had spoken so calmly, without really directing it at him. That she thought of that was surprising. It begged a question from him, though, "Why did fighting with me make you feel better?"

That sent her right back to annoyance. "I came to your letterbox one morning, in the pouring rain, so that I wouldn't have to hand it back to you personally, you bungfunnel. I don't want to talk you."

"Then why are you always the one starting our pleasant conversations?"

"Like when you whined about my bow and got it taken away? The last good thing I had here."

He narrowed his eyes. "Your only outlet for happiness is a projectile weapon?"

"Archery's a sport. I'm good at it. My father made that bow for me when I was six."

"Then it would follow you would know how to avoid shooting people."

"I did NOT shoot you!" she yelled. "A fletching tore! And maybe because I've not gottae fix me arrows since I came to this shite town!" As she continued, her accent became thicker and she didn't seem to be speaking just English. Fearless of it now, Hiccup watched her blankly, waiting for her to burn out. Her stream of unintelligible profanities only cut off as Jack opened the driver's door and climbed in with a paper bag.

"I'm not killing the mood, am I?"

"I'm glad you are." Hiccup said. "And how many chicken nuggets did you buy?"

Jack took out two medium boxes. "Twenty only costs, like, fifty cents more than ten. And hasn't your friend been living off of bugs and sticks for two days?" He held one out to Merida.

She looked at him, surprised. "You're giving me this?"

"You want it?"

She quietly answered, "Yes, please," and took the offering. Her politeness was quite disconcerting, in the way that even a faint light can be when one's eyes have adjusted to pitch black of a room, or a soul. Hiccup didn't believe he had heard either words in her voice before.

"Okay," Jack looked between the two of them. "I want to know exactly how this works."

Hiccup answered, "We're taking her home, then never talking about this again."

"No, I meant whatever you're doing here. This pissing contest. Why aren't you just fighting like normal people? Not like I consider you normal people." He looked at Merida. "Sorry, I barely know you, but the bow-hunting thing disqualifies you."

Merida looked not to mind as the more pressing prospect of warm food was at hand, so Hiccup answered. "We've done our fighting. And we agreed to stay out of each other's ways, but somehow, someone keeps forgetting that."

Now Merida was motivated. "I'll remind you that you're the one that has me hostage right now."

"Because you broke our deal."

"You have a deal?" Jack asked. Hiccup was hoping he could leave this to explain later.

"I caught her in the woods yesterday, gave her my phone, and we agreed she'd go home by tonight. When that didn't happen," he pointed his glare at her, "I tracked my phone."

"You found a missing person and just waited to see what would happen? Why didn't tell your dad about this?"

"Really should have," Merida said. "I'd rather your father throw me in a car than you."

"If you hate being near me so much, you could have given my notebook to Astrid instead of arguing on the porch."

Jack interrupted before they could continue. "Hold on, was that the notebook she stole?"

Merida threw her head back. "My God, I didn't steal it! You told him I stole it?"

Hiccup kept his voice low. "I thought you stole it, okay? And I was wrong. I admit, I was wrong that time."

"Thanks for letting me know. Here I was, thinking I'd committed theft and near manslaughter."

Hiccup turned away from her. "Jack, she showed up at my house one morning in a rainstorm to stick a notebook in my mailbox."

Jack frowned at him. "How does she know where you live?"

Hiccup's eyes widened, never having considered the question. He faced Merida and demanded, "How do you know where I live?"

"It's just further up the street than me," she said, "And your dragon's always staring out the window, you can't miss that! Every time I walk past he's watching me! Like I'm prey."

Hiccup was going to respond, but noticed Jack shake his head with a bit of a smile.

"You find this pretty entertaining, don't you?"

Jack sat up straighter and nodded. "Oh. Yeah. And I get it now. I see the problem."

"Which?" Merida asked.

"Why you hate each other. You, uh…" He barely held back a bout of laughter. "You have all the wrong things in common."

"We have nothing in common!" they retorted, in near unison. Hiccup could have shivered right out of his skin.

Jack ran down his list, "You don't know how to act socially inappropriate, you're overly defensive, so you run into conflict, and you get hung up on the tiniest things. And you're so stubborn that you're right about them that you'll purposefully talk to someone you say you hate."

The car became quiet with only the sound of Jack eating for a few seconds, while Hiccup felt somehow violated by such an accurate description. Merida also looked uncomfortable, but then bitterly told Jack, "You met me today, bawbag." Hiccup couldn't hold back a laugh.

Jack resented that. "You see? That's incredibly rude. I saved your life and gave you sustenance." He pointed at Hiccup, who was trying to keep a straight face. "And you do this shit all the time too."

"In the two years I've known you, I'm pretty certain I've never taken chicken nuggets from you and then called you a ballsack." Now Merida was trying not to laugh, and Jack shook his head in disappointment.

"Yeah, whatever, you assholes deserve each other. Where does she live?"

"Close enough to be stalked by my dragon."

As they approached her home, Hiccup told Jack to pull over behind the cover of a tall shrub bordering the neighbor's yard. In the solid darkness, he stepped out and released the back door, letting Merida out. He stood still as she stepped toward the house, then turned to him.

"You're not... 'turning me in'," she asked him, "Just letting me go?"

"No reason not to. If you want, you can explain to your parents how I..." He motioned air quotes, forgetting that they were practically invisible in the shadows. "didn't want to hand you back personally, you bungfunnels."

He heard her exhale and couldn't tell in the dark if it was laughter or scoffing. "Well, thanks, I guess."

They split apart, and he watched her stepping into the slightly brighter space before her front door, hesitating for a moment. Please just go in. Please go, and we can all wash our hands of this... Merida knocked. A light flicked on. A moment later, she stood meekish as the door opened, quickly producing a clearly overjoyed woman that wrapped around a startled Merida with muffled praises.

At that signal, Hiccup jumped back into the car. "We're good. Back away, quietly. Lights off."

"This is weird." Jack gently pulled back and whispered with an anxious rush. "This is really weird. Why do you always have to do weird stuff?"

"You can relax already, it's over."

"I thought the whole point of this was, like, delivering her to them. This is like if a pizza company ding dong ditched their customers."

"She's… not a pizza."

"You know what I mean. You had a one-day-or-I'm-free-to-capture-you deal."

"Well, now she has no more reasons to hate me. I wasn't seen by her family, you're the only person who knows, and she can't say I'm playing hero… Everything is settled. I didn't lose this time."

"Didn't lose what?"

Hiccup let himself finally smile. "I didn't say sorry this time. I didn't apologize. She even thanked me. Did you hear that?"

Jack nodded. "Yep, you definitely don't have a hero complex."

He sank back into the seat with incredible relief. "It's finally over. I never have to speak to her again."

Jack glanced at the backseat. "Did you get your phone back from her?"

"... Damn it."