How all of Berk could be so uplifted and somber at the same time was a new experience for them all. The war was over! Their hero, however, was not well. Hiccup's leg had been lost, and the entire village feared losing the rest of him – none moreso than Stoick. The journey home had been precarious, and no one was allowed to see the teenager from the moment he was carried into the chieftain's house. Including Toothless.

Stoick would not let the dragon into the house to see his son.

He wasn't punishing Toothless by any means. Odin forbid he hold a grudge against the one that saved Hiccup's life. But Stoick wouldn't risk it. The protests had come in the form of furious roars and bucking about the grassy hill in a threatening display of "I'll see my human if I want to!" Within hours, roars had died down to persistent growls and scratches at the door, the shudders, even the roof. A day later saw the scaly beast coming undone at the seams, whining and wailing at every corner of the house with no real spirit behind his demands, only desperation. He floated between spurts of anxious panic and long hours of lethargy.

The wailing roars were worst at night, when Toothless wandered to the cliffs of the island to serenade himself. Those ghostly cries floated over the village despite the distance, encasing the quiet houses in their somber vibrations. They bothered Stoick the most, because the man had to watch his son stir in his fever-ridden sleep as the sounds penetrated his illness. The constant dragon song was only quiet when one of the teenagers sat with Toothless, watching the Haddock house with him. Astrid was kind enough to take a stiff bristled brush to his hide more than once, sweeping away the scales that were shed from his stress and healing wounds.

Within a week, Toothless became a pathetic pile of embers at the front door, refusing to eat or sleep long enough for the almost silent whining to cease.

Still, Stoick would not let the dragon into the house to see his son.

He didn't do it to protect his fevered boy. No, he was doing it to protect the dragon. If Hiccup gave up his spirit and passed to Valhalla with Toothless at his bedside to watch, the dragon would never recover, never forgive, never fly. Hard as it was to believe that a dragon and a boy could bond so closely in little more than a month, Stoick didn't doubt that witnessing Hiccup's death would cause the dragon to pass as well.

The chieftain would never admit that if he lost one, he couldn't bear to lose the other, too. So for his own, selfish reasons, he would not let Toothless see his son. Instead, he sat with the dragon on the cliffs at night. And he mourned with him. And he petted him. He fed him. He watered him. He nursed him.

And when the healer smiled at Hiccup's condition for the first time, Stoick stole all the dragon-related drawings from Hiccup's room and took them to Gobber. He raided the boy's back room in the smithy, too, searching for every vital sketch. And he helped Gobber make new tack for the dragon and his rider (in his own, secretly clumsy way.) Gobber even devised a prosthetic that would work with the foot controls of Hiccup's original saddle design.

When the healer stopped giving Hiccup the tea that kept him asleep, Gobber fitted the new foot and left the Haddock house with a hopeful smile. Stoick took it upon himself to stand by the dragon and bask in the relief of his son's return to the world. He opened the front door wide, looked a confused Toothless in the eyes, smiled, and said,

"Go on, then. Wake him up!"

Hello! Another old piece I found. It's short, but it was fun to write. This one struck me while I was watching my parents' dog during their travels. It's not my best work by a long shot, but there are parts I really like. I hope you enjoyed it!

Thanks for reading!

~mjb