It takes hours, she thinks. At one point, she remembers buying bags of chips for them to eat and breaking down when she opened the bag, realizing she had unthinkingly bought salt and vinegar, Hiccup's favorite. She ate them anyway, if only as a nice distraction.
A nurse in Scooby-Doo scrubs comes out and says, "He's still unconscious, but you can come to his room. He's not out of the woods yet." Lindsay jumps up with Stoick, but the nurse's eyes widen guiltily as she says, "Only family, dear."
She wants to scream, "I am his family!" Instead she begs Stoick, "Just—just tell him I love him, okay? And I'll come soon."
"Go ahead home, honey," the nurse says. "You look warmed over death." Suddenly, she remembers Toothless, hastily shoved into the house, not knowing that Hiccup is as safe as he can be. He must be panicking too. "Mr. Haddock!" She yells. "May I have a key?"
Stoick cocks his head.
"I need to feed the cat," she explains, hopefully unsuspicious to the nurse. All they need now is Animal Control poking in.
"Ah," he says, handing over a key, thinking she really just needs one of her own.
She drives straight to the Haddock House. Being here without the promise of time with Hiccup feels anguishing, especially when it hits her that he might never come home.
She sees immediately the effects of their haste in hiding Toothless. The doors, both od them, are shredded, clearly by claws. The cat has been trying to escape since they left. She feels a prick of shame in their selfishness. Without Toothless, Hiccup would have died, and that was how they thanked him.
She flings open the door and Toothless lunges out, snarling. "It's me!" she yells. "I'm sorry, Toothless, I am…."
He stills and looks at her with eyes asking, "Where's Hiccup?"
"Still in the hospital," she says. "He hasn't—woken up yet."
Toothless whimpers and the sound breaks her heart. "I know, bud," she whispers. "I know." The panther twines around her ankles, and she sinks on the steps around him. "I'm scared, Toothless."
Toothless whimpers again, as if in sympathy. "If he dies," she mutters, afraid to even say those evil words, "I don't know what would happen to either of us."
Toothless dips his head. He doesn't know either.
"No wonder Hiccup talks to you so much. You're a good listener," she tells him, and that thought, that talks might become talked, that Hiccup might become past tense, that this amazing, wry, beautiful person might cease to breathe and exist and make her laugh, makes her cry into the night-black coat.
Stoick calls and tells her the surgery was a success, but Hiccup has fallen in a coma. He hastens to explain that it's been medically induced; Hiccup's body is using all its energy to heal, and the pain is excruciating. He woke up at four this morning screaming about fire and Toothless and the doctors preferred this, time for his body to heal, instead of narcotics. The pain will ebb enough soon for him to go home. "Recovery is still a long way off," Stoick warns. "But…he'll live."
He cuts short her cry of exultation with the simple statement, "You can visit."
She flies out of her house.
When she arrives and the nurse stares at her while she's asking for his room number, she realizes she's in Hiccup's hoodie she stole from his house, a shred of comfort, and yoga pants with her frog slippers. The wild desperation all over her face might not be helping. "234," the woman replies, a little bewildered. "And have a good day."
"You too," she calls behind her as she hurries to catch the elevator.
She finally arrives, and Hiccup is so small under his covers. She finally slows and sits awkwardly by his bed. Stoick smiles at her as widely as he can. "He can hear us, you know," he informs her. "His heart rate increases."
"Really?"
He nods.
"Hey, Hiccup," she says, taking his hand. "You scared me so much, lovemuffin. Don't do that again, okay?"
She looks at the monitor; sure enough, his heart rate had risen. "So Toothless misses you. You guys might have to replace your door."
If she closes her eyes and wishes, she can imagine the beep of the machine into his laugh.
"So I love you," she says, her voice cloud-soft and as malleable as copper. "I know you like hearing that. I do, too." She swallows, trying to contain the tears altering her voice into something high-pitched and fractured. "So wake up soon, okay? So you can tell me." She runs her fingers over his hand and leans to kiss his unmoving lips. She wipes her tears off his cheeks with her sleeve. "Because I'll be waiting. Okay? As long as you want me, I'll be waiting."
Lindsay knows he loves her. It becomes a source of comfort, the thought: He loves me.
She repeats this mantra increasingly as each day passes, as he does not call.
Hiccup's coma was lifted. A prosthetic was attached. He was sent home. She knows all of this from Stoick, who called to tell her, "But he's not ready to see anyone yet. He'll call when he is."
Two weeks have passed, and she needs to see him so much she feels like she's in withdrawal. She has left a message a day on his phone, just to hear his voice and tell him that she can't wait to see him. The can't is becoming less of a figure of speech.
Finally she calls and says, "If you don't call me back today, I'm coming there. I'm seriously worried, Hiccup." She hangs up—no I-love-yous for someone you're going to kiss then kill.
She goes into the house and up to his room that afternoon. Stoick isn't there, but he's already taken off three weeks and most likely he is trying to pull up his slack at the company.
She knocks. "Hiccup?"
There is no answer. Toothless growls from behind the door, and a voice shushes him. He is there. He is not answering her.
He is alive.
She goes.
She comes every day to knock and wait. She is patient at first, kind, understanding in his want of solitude, to how he hides in shame and fear. But today she is going to see him, she has to; she will not allow him to isolate himself from her.
Her fists crash against the door, insistent even as they throb. "Hiccup, let me in right now!"
Silence.
"Harrison Henry Haddock the Third, let me in if you ever meant you loved me."
She waits, and the door cracks.
Hiccup's hair is lank. He is bonier than she remembers; has he been eating? Her eyes connect with his, and those jade eyes are tired. "Hey," she says. Then she kisses him, a little more forcefully than is probably wise. She almost knocks him into the door. "God, I missed you," she admits. He smiles, a real Hiccup smile, and she smiles back before punching his arm. "That was for scaring me out of my wits and ignoring me for two weeks! I was freaking out, you moron!" She sits on his bed. "This is a new level of disgusting in here, even for you," she reprimands, gesturing to the clothes that form a small mountain on his floor.
"Funnily enough, I haven't felt like cleaning." His emotions of worthlessness and anger come out in that one remark, that attempt to be himself that came out barbed and not the way he wants to speak to the girl he loves.
She looks at him, her eyes hard. "Hiccup. Don't you dare make yourself some cripple to be pitied. You're alive and that is something that makes you lucky. And I love you, so don't shut me out like I can't understand you anymore. I know you. I know you—" She presses her lips to his again. "And you know it."
"I'm not okay," he whispers. Tears gather in his eyes because he's not sure he'll ever be.
"Who says I need you to be okay?" She demands. "I don't care what your leg looks like. You're still mine. You always are mine. I'm always yours. That's it, okay? Nothing's changed. That—" She gestures to his leg. "isn't what I love. All this, that's what I love."
"You just gestured to all of me."
"Absolutely." She stands and begins to gather his dirty clothes off the floor. "Now we are cleaning this mess."
Nothing has changed, alright.
His face brightens with his old grin, and he begins to help her.
"Hiccup!"
"Man, we thought you were dead!"
"You wouldn't answer your phone—"
"Your dad wouldn't tell us anything…"
"Lindsay was being insane, man, when you turn your phone on you'll see she called like a thousand times… in the voicemails she left bitching you out you'll hear us laughing in the background…"
"Shut up, Tuff," she yelled.
"Really, we missed you," Astrid says seriously.
"Yeah," the others chorus.
He grins, and says truthfully, "I missed you too." Even without Lindsay's prodding, there's something he's ready to tell them. "Hey, I want you guys to meet someone. You're not allergic to cats, right?"
So it follows a semi-structure of the movie, see? Just out of order...but now all the Vikings know :) 1-2 more chapters coming guys. Depends on whether you guys want two epilogues or not. So review and tell me.