A/N: I do not own Tintin. It belongs to Herge and Moulinsart.

Enjoy!

The bar was really more of a pub, and stuffed full of sailors enjoying their last night on land before a long voyage. The drinks were cheap and plentiful, and the air hummed with drunk talking and shouting. The atmosphere balanced on a knife-edge, and the bartenders were tensed and wary – any minute the jolly sailor might metamorphose into the murderous pirate.

A small band played in the corner, but they were mainly ignored by the residents for alcohol. The musicians didn't seem to mind, and played quite happily to themselves without worrying about important things like, say, having their instruments in tune.

It was definitely a place infinitely more enjoyable if you were drunk, Tintin thought to himself as he cradled his ginger beer. He'd received a funny look when he placed his order, and for a moment he had considered ordering something stronger, something to… numb the pain.

Just before speaking, however, he'd stopped himself.

Getting drunk won't solve anything, he told himself sternly. And if he was stuck in this time indefinitely, he didn't want to end up like Captain Haddock in his time.

There'd be no Tintin to rescue you from your drunken stupor, he thought wryly.

Every now and then he glanced down at the floor, and for a second his mind would project the image of a white dog curled up at his feet. Then the mirage would disappear, and the loss would hit him again like a stone slab. Each time, it grew heavier.

As the patrons of the bar sunk deeper into drunkenness, Tintin sank lower into depression. For once, there was no villain to beat, no death trap to cleverly escape, no story to write. He was abandoned, stranded, on this island of a time with barely any money, no job, no place to stay, no friends, no Snowy.

Nothing.

He had nothing.

Even in the beginning, when he'd had nothing, he'd had Snowy.

He was utterly alo-

'What's this?'

A hand swooped down in front of his face and he started. The hand snatched his ginger beer and Tintin turned to see young Captain Haddock taking a swig from the bottle. Almost immediately his face wrinkled in disgust and he spat out his mouthful.

'Ginger beer?' he said in disbelief. 'How can you even sit in here without being completely drunk?'

'Easily,' Tintin replied grumpily, forgetting for a second that this wasn't his Captain Haddock.

'Well, I beg to disagree, because you look like you need a drink.'

Haddock vanished into the crowd, and Tintin hoped he wouldn't come back. It was almost worse, having his friend there when he wasn't his friend, not yet.

Unfortunately he was back almost immediately, clutching two bottles with a distinctive odour.

'If you're going to get drunk and miserable, it's better not to do it alone,' he said, pushing a bottle towards Tintin. Tintin took it but didn't drink, watching instead as Haddock took a swig of his own. He was so different from the Haddock Tintin knew – he drank like he enjoyed it, not like it was oxygen and he needed it to live. He was just as friendly as Captain Haddock, but in youth this translated to charisma, helped by his mischievous eyes sparkling underneath his mop of hair.

'What kind of a name's Tintin, anyway?' he asked, grinning. 'Tintin Lutin? That Rabier drawing?'

'Just Tintin,' he replied.

'Short for Augustine? Martin?'

'No. Just Tintin.'

'Well, just Tintin, aren't you going to drink up?'

Tintin stared at the bottle, wondering how much harm it could do. Just a little sip…

Now you sound just like the Captain.

'Go on,' Haddock coaxed. 'I promise it won't kill you.'

'It's just that my friend used to be a drunk, and the only time I ever got drunk was when I was…'

He trailed off, realising how ludicrous the rest of his sentence would have sounded. When I was about to be shot for taking bombs into San Theodoros, even though it wasn't my suitcase. Tintin knew it was true, and it sounded ridiculous even to him.

'When?' Haddock asked, looking genuinely interested.

'It's not important,' Tintin said, 'don't worry about- Captain! Watch out!'

A small fight had broken out on the table near them, and a drunken man had been about to plough into Haddock's back. Haddock dodged the man with grace Tintin had never seen his older counterpart employ, and the man fell onto their table, where he groaned and looked about with bleary eyes, searching for revenge.

'You… you punched m'face,' he said, righting himself with difficulty and pointing unsteadily at Tintin. Tintin sighed.

'It wasn't me.' But he knew there was no point reasoning with a man that drunk.

When the clumsy punch launched towards his head, Tintin was ready for it. Almost lazily he dodged and returned with a stronger, more precise punch of his own and caught the man, who was almost twice his size, right between the eyes.

He fell like a tall tree, slowly and ponderously at first, swaying slightly in surprise, but then gathered speed as the floor rushed closer. The thump shook the entire room and Tintin looked up into Haddock's impressed eyes.

'You don't punch like a reporter.'

'You don't drink like a sailor,' Tintin pointed out Haddock's bottle, which was still almost full. Young Haddock shrugged.

'Pub brawls are always so much more fun when you're sober,' he grinned, before turning and decking a man who had been sneaking up behind him, bottle in hand.

The fight spread through the pub like a violent earthquake tremor, with Tintin and Haddock the unfortunate occupants of the epicentre. Tintin soon got bored of dodging flailing arms and dived under the nearest sturdy-looking table, hoping to wait out the brawl and then return to his ginger beer and moping.

He wasn't the only one with the hiding strategy. He came, once again, face to face with young Haddock, who grinned wider than ever.

'You know, Tintin, you're someone I could get to like.'

'Thanks.'

'But why d'you call me 'Captain?''

Crumbs. Tintin had been hoping young Haddock would forget about his momentary slip-up.

'You just… remind me of my friend,' he mumbled lamely. 'He's a sailor too. A Captain.'

'Oh.' Young Haddock seemed satisfied with the explanation. 'I'd like to be a Captain one day. Like my father, and my grandfather and… well, just about everyone in my family really. I've been working my way up from the lowliest jobs onboard any ship I could find willing to take me.'

'Have you got a job now?' Tintin asked. This might be a bonus…

'Yeah, on the Icarus. Sails tomorrow on the noon tide to Span. Why? Looking for one yourself?'

'As a matter of fact, I am,' Tintin replied.

'Well, there's certainly room for you – they're struggling to fill crews at the moment. It's all about the work on land, in the factories. No one wants a life on the sea.' Haddock glanced sideways at Tintin, and the brawl raged above their heads. Something smashed on the table above them and a bucket rolled past their hiding place.

'Thanks, Capt… Haddock,' Tintin said, relieved. It was the answer to his prayers – lodging, food, a job, and he knew his way around a ship. Captain Haddock had seen to that.

'I told you before, my friends call me Archie,' young Haddock grinned. 'And I think I want to befriend someone with a punch like yours.'

()

The Captain and the Professor stared disbelievingly at the patch of empty air where the portal had been only seconds before. Snowy, who had landed, skidded and turned, barked a couple of times, the blueprints fluttering from his mouth onto the floor, where they lay forgotten.

'Tintin?' the Captain gasped out into the painful silence. Snowy barked again, not quite understanding where Tintin had disappeared too. He had been running right behind Snowy, hadn't he? So why had he not arrived?

'The poor dear boy,' Calculus said sadly, shaking his head and turning away. 'If only the world knew what he has done for them-'

'Listen, you old goat, get this machine started again! Find him!' Haddock yelled, grasping Calculus by the shoulders and shaking him. Tears threatened to fall from the old sailor's eyes and he blinked them back harshly, focussing all his grief into anger.

'I know we can't find him, Captain! That's what makes it so very sad!' Calculus shouted back. Haddock rolled his eyes but released the Professor. It wasn't his fault, after all.

'Come back lad,' he said softly, looking back at the dormant machine. 'Do the impossible, like you normally do, and come home.'

Snowy woofed quietly beside him, obviously hoping for the same thing.

()

Tendrils of sunlight forced their way through the cloudy morning sky as Tintin surveyed the docks. He'd been so confident back in Marlinspike, so sure of himself. Now, he didn't have a clue where to start looking for Jacques and the blueprints.

'If I was a Syldavian Spy, Snowy, and had important documents in my possession, where would I go?' Tintin pondered out loud, watching a burly man attach a crate to a crane.

Snowy barked softly and continued to sniff around on the floor, his tail wagging ever so slightly. Tintin stared at the ships rolling and creaking in the port, wondering if a young Captain Haddock was among them, starting his sailing career. Perhaps a younger Calculus was still working for his PhD. At least there was no chance of running into his younger self – he wouldn't be born for another couple of years. Twenty-five years back, the read-out on the machine had said.

It felt strangely unreal, knowing you were in a time before you actually existed. It made him feel like he could do anything. He was no one – there was no Tintin yet, not in this Brussels. No famous Boy Reporter, and no enemies. It was like starting from scratch, all over again.

No one would know his name.

Tintin was torn from his reverie by a volley of excited barks.

'What is it, Snowy? Have you caught a scent?' He asked, crouching down beside his diminutive dog. Snowy woofed happily and trotted off, his nose pressed against the floor, and Tintin followed him with anticipation building in his chest. This was what he lived for. The excitement of the chase, the triumph of out-smarting the bad guys, the closure of writing an article.

Because of the sense of safety being in another time had given Tintin, he didn't notice the danger until it was too late. Snowy was circling, letting out confused barks, his nose leading him nowhere. Tintin watched, concerned.

'Have you lost the scent, boy? Where's he go-'

A strong hand pressed a cloth against Tintin's mouth; another prevented him from struggling.

Chloroform.

Tintin tried not to breathe it in, but eventually his body forced him to take a breath and the cloying sweetness entered his lungs, clouding his brain and blearing his eyes.

The darkness came swiftly after the bitter taste of failure.

()

'This one?'

'Yeah. That's for the Icarus as well. And all those down that side,' Archie gestured to the crates stacked neatly along a low brick wall, marked with a black cross and waiting to be lifted onto the huge iron ship lying patiently in the Senne.

Tintin grabbed the crane hook and deftly fastened it to the ties, before tugging to check the tightness and then signalling the go-ahead to the crane operator. The crate began to ascend skywards slowly, beginning its long journey to Spain.

'So what's in the crates?' Tintin asked, staring distrustfully at the cargo, thoughts of crab tins containing drugs dancing through his mind. Archie seemed to notice his anxiety.

'Beer mainly, and lace, and cloth, and…' Archie paused and glanced around, in case anyone was listening in, before leaning closer to Tintin and whispering 'and Allan told me there's a rumour going round there's diamonds hidden somewhere in this lot.'

What?

Archie misinterpreted Tintin's look of shock and laughed. 'I know! I can barely believe it either! Diamonds on this ship… I mean, it's not much to look at.'

It wasn't, this was true. The Icarus looked like it was only a few short voyages away from the scrapheap. Every joint and rivet looked fragile, as though the tiniest breath of wind could buckle it.

'Allan?' Tintin breathed in horror. Archie gave him a strange look.

'Yeah, Allan. He's a good sailor, and a good mate. We work together sometimes; you tend to meet the same people in this line of work. Why, d'you know him?'

'Oh, er, no. Sorry. Probably isn't the person I was thinking of,' Tintin blustered, trying to hide his mistake. It had been happening too often. He was messing up, potentially ruining the timeline. He should never have told young Haddock –Archie – his name, his real name. It made everything just so confusing. What if he did get back and found he'd unravelled the time lines, or something equally drastic?

It was just that he had never felt so alone, so abandoned, so hopeless as he had just after the portal had closed. He had been a mess, and unwilling to let go of the one slim thing that tied him to his old life. Even if Archie was so different to his Captain it was like being with a completely different person.

Still, it was nice to have a friend, even if he was going to regret it later.

'I can't imagine it; diamonds, on that heap of junk.' Archie was staring at the crates as though trying to see through the wood to the possible treasure beneath. 'To think that we'll be on the same ship as – blistering barnacles! Look out!'

For a moment Tintin thought that Captain Haddock – his Haddock – had suddenly appeared, shouting a warning, and he froze, for once in his life unable to move or react, too concentrated on finding the Captain than on the crane crashing down towards him.

Archie slammed into his side, pulling him over and down. They rolled about eight metres with the momentum and the world span and blurred in Tintin's eyes, the disorientating effect completed by the horrific crash made by the crane.

'That was a close one,' Archie breathed, scrambling quickly onto his feet. 'The baboon operating that thing deserves to be sacked. We could have been killed!' He offered Tintin a weatherworn hand and Tintin took it, heaving himself onto his feet. Archie, satisfied Tintin was undamaged, strode away towards the toppled, smashed crane, yelling at the driver in outrage.

'Bashi-bazouk! Nincompoop! Did you actually learn how to use that or did you just get in and have a go, you…'

Archie's shouted insults faded away into background noise as Tintin stared at the heap of scrap metal that had once been a crane.

Someone was out to kill him.

A/N: I intend to keep the relationship between the Captain and Tintin purely platonic, despite what it may appear. I love their friendship dynamic so much and I hope I do it justice.