Claws digging into my sockets.

A tongue exploring the inside of my mouth, leaving crackles of energy in its wake.

Blazing eyes in dark sockets, probing my very soul…

When I woke up and saw the plastered white hospital ceiling, my first thought was, not again. My head was a little fuzzy – like it had been Monday morning after I'd used my sedatives as a sleeping aid. That would pass in about fifteen minutes, but that wasn't the point. I'd had a panic attack and needed to be held down; and I'd been doing so well, too, rarely even needing the inhaler for three days…

It was still Thursday, right?

I was pretty sure; my body didn't seem to have the lethargy that it had when I'd spent a week in the hospital. My left shin ached so badly, though…it had been the pain that woke me up. I lifted my head to see what was wrong with my leg.

Beyond my knee was a plaster boot, held off the bed by some kind of sling on a crane.

My leg was broken.

I dropped back down onto the bed. "Great…this time I broke something." Dad was going to have a field day when he got back home and heard about this…

"Actually, you just made it worse."

Gordon. I hadn't even realized he was in the room. "What do you mean?"

"What do you remember?"

I shut my eyes and started thinking hard.

Scott had shoved me against the lockers – no, that was yesterday. The dragon was watching me…no…assuming it was there in the first place, that was Monday. I'd been dodging Speedy behind the…that was Tuesday.

"My memory's all jumbled," I finally complained.

"Field hockey," Gordon supplied.

Right…that happened every day, except for yesterday when it got rained out: Spencer got the football players out practicing in the rain, but Gordon couldn't do the same thing with two prosthetics. The girls had to pass first inspection before they took the field, especially when it had rained the day before, and I'd been giving out careful warnings where I dared to as I took notes on their warmups.

"Did I say something particularly insulting to one of those girls?"

"I was hoping you could tell me: I only knew something had gone horribly wrong when you started screaming. I'd think you'd be smarter than that, though – they are stronger than you."

I shook my head. "All I remember saying was…warnings about the grass. You know, 'a little caution now saves a lot of pain later' kinds of things. A twisted ankle could bench one of them for several practices, and a lot of players can get so caught up in the sport that they overlook that." I paused. Something was nagging…there. I'd said something to someone, she'd snarled back, and I'd turned away muttering to myself. Then…nothing. "The last thing I remember is…I was talking to myself about something. Maybe she thought I was still talking to her and took offense."

Gordon cocked his eyebrow. "I don't suppose you remember what you said."

"I don't even remember which of those girls it was."

The other eyebrow jumped up to join the first. Apparently, he thought I would at least remember that.

"Just for the record, I don't really want an apology from her; not unless she means it. 'Sorry' is kind of worthless if you're only saying it because you have to." I thought about it and added, "I guess I'd like to know exactly how I set her off, though: then we can come to some agreement where I never do it again and she doesn't break any more of my bones."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"No pressing charges?"

"Only if I hit her or something during my panic attack and she presses charges first. I just…don't want to drag this out." No, I wanted this dealt with and put away as fast as humanly possible.

Gordon finally nodded, as if he actually understood. Maybe he did. "Ah, I think we can make this quick. I'll just tell her that she has to explain herself to you – properly – or else she gets thrown off the team. Nice and simple."

"Is the threat necessary?" I asked anxiously.

"Hey, what she did to you was unnecessary roughness; she's lucky I don't suspend her even with the explanation." Gordon smirked a bit. "Are you sure you don't remember which lass it was? Because you're acting a bit like you do remember."

I rolled my eyes. "No, I really don't remember…care to fill me in?"

"Astrid Hofferson."

My breath jammed.

It would have to be Astrid, wouldn't it? The golden-haired girl I'd been crushing on for nearly ten years; she was cute then, and was glorious now. The girl who carried herself like a princess and bestowed her attention on people like they were her subjects. The girl who, under any kind of pressure, was as cool as an autumn wind – and could slice through people like that wind if she so chose.

I looked hopefully at Gordon. "Do you suppose you can ask her to write me that explanation?"

"Get your head out of first gear and look at long-term. Do you want her to write that explanation? Do you know her – or know of her – well enough to know what the results of that will be?"

I thought about it. Then I realized that I would then have a written confession of her worst moment. With that, if I so cared, I could blackmail her into anything short of breaking more bones. I'd never do that, but she didn't know me – not to the extent that I knew about her. She would insist that I burn the letter after reading it…and then would she even trust that I had? I doubted it. No, she would then be constantly breathing down my neck, conveniently ignoring that there was no logical way to prove that I'd done what she asked; I didn't think she would go so far as to break and enter the Mayor's house to find the letter herself, but who knew how far she would go if sufficiently motivated? I was sure that if she ever had any reason to think I still had that letter and would use it against her, she would beat me to death with her hockey stick. And then she would charm the authorities, beautiful enough to get away with murder. And she would scare everybody else off the case with her death-glare of blue fire…

The accelerating heart-rate monitor finally got my attention, and I scrabbled for my inhaler.

Maybe four puffs later the dratted thing's beeping went back down, and I looked helplessly at Gordon. "You'll be there, right? As…as spotter, if nothing else, right?"

"I'll be there."

Friday morning I woke up with an entirely different kind of hangover: the doctors had given me opiates for the pain in my leg. Seems those pills had been designed for someone bigger and heavier than I was – I'd have to restrict myself to half of one per dose if I wanted to be even remotely functional. Also, I couldn't use the opiates and my calming agent together; preferring the idea of suppressing panic attacks over suppressing pain, I packed my inhaler and left the pills home.

Fisher signed my cast at the earliest convenience. His was the second signature I collected (Gordon's had been first). I spent the rest of the time before hockey practice wondering if my dad would get home enough before the cast came off to add his signature, and if he would care enough to do so; I would need the thing for the better part of two months, so there was a good chance about the timing.

I'll never know exactly how Gordon convinced Astrid to explain herself: I wasn't there for that part. But as I limped over to the hockey field on my crutches, they were both on the bench waiting for me. Just seeing her at a distance had me pausing to take a couple of puffs with my inhaler.

Okay, act calm…nobody panic. I got closer and noticed something else about Astrid. She looked pissed as hell – and a little sick, as her gaze went to my leg. I wouldn't have believed that Astrid, with all her love of hitting and tackling people, actually had a problem with causing real structural damage. But, amazingly, her face was a little pale. Was it possible that she really regretted what she did yesterday?

Well, sure: her position on the team was in danger over the misconduct. Anything else was about as likely as a Night Fury turning into a pet kitty.

"Hiccup." She acknowledged my presence tersely.

I decided that, if only she sounded a little happier to see me, I wouldn't mind her calling me that.

"Astrid."

"Two things, just for the record." She held up a finger. "One, there was no plan when I…it was kind of an accident. I didn't actually intend to…break your leg." Another sick glance at my cast.

I almost said something. I very nearly made some sarcastic comment about how reassuring it was that she'd messed up my framework, temporarily crippling me, by accident. Fortunately common sense and fear came together just in time, stopping my tongue before the fatal words could slip out. I nodded as tersely as she'd acknowledged me before, and said nothing.

"Second, yesterday had been a bad day for me even before you opened your mouth." She held up a hand, cutting her eyes at Gordon. "Which doesn't excuse my assault, I know, but…any other day I'd have ignored you altogether, or only snarled at you again; something significantly less than violence."

I nodded again, more understanding then terse – and finally dared to speak. "What I've been able to remember of yesterday, it wasn't a good day for me either. Heck, it hasn't been a good week for me." Two weeks, actually; and if the next two weeks were as bad as the last two weeks, this would be the worst month of my life. But Astrid didn't need to hear all my woes.

I didn't need an apology so bad that I would troll for it.

Astrid considered me through narrowed eyes. "So…you don't remember yesterday?"

"I remember some of it. The closer it is to…this…" I gestured at the cast, "The less clearly I remember it." I smirked wryly. "Saving grace, right? My shinbones must have made a really horrible noise when they snapped, and I don't remember it at all."

If I was reading Astrid's expression right, she was torn between throwing up on the cast and beating me senseless. "I don't, either," she muttered. Then she took a deep breath and was back to Ice Princess Mode. "Let me clear it up for you, then: thanks to whatever twisted part of your brain is determined to always have the last word, you said 'Fearless Astrid Hofferson' in that snarky little voice. Don't ever say that again, especially when I'm already having a bad day." As an afterthought – or as if the word was dragged out of her with pliers – she added, "Please."

Gordon's expression changed slightly, into one of understanding. Astrid's "explanation" evidently made more sense to him than it did to me.

I shrugged. "Okay, you don't want me to call you 'fearless' again. Fair enough. Fearlessness is overrated anyway."

Astrid surged to her feet, her hands clenched into fists. "What the hell does that mean?"

Gordon stood and put his prosthetic hook on her shoulder, stopping her from actually approaching me. He was pretty fast, too, though not quite fast enough to counter my reflexive response to "angry girl incoming." By the time Astrid came to a full stop in word and motion, I had jerked backwards – buckling at the waist to protect my torso – stumbled on my crutches and fell down.

There's no winning with Astrid! I would take small victories where I could find them, though: she didn't actually trigger another panic attack. My breathing had accelerated and my heart was threatening to burst out of my chest, and I was gripping my crutches so hard that my knuckles were white, but the nightmares weren't coming after me. The drug was still holding.

"Ow," I said as a bit of an afterthought.

Astrid didn't apologize. I didn't expect her to: she still hadn't apologized for the more serious offense, so she wouldn't offer anything for this. But she did grimace and, with a visible effort, relaxed her attack mode.

"He's got a point there," Gordon said conversationally, still keeping his hook on Astrid, "When you're known to be fearless, people expect you to do fearless things. These are always the things that no one else wants to do – that the less fearless will watch from a safe distance. Those with the Fearless rep are doing their fearless thing all alone, which means that if anything goes wrong there's no one to back them up. Sound about right, Hiccup?"

I nodded, slowly loosening my grip on the crutches. "If I were fearless, I'd have met you alone for this conversation and you probably really would have hit me for that…"

"Would not have," Astrid muttered, although with no real energy.

"…And I'd have had another panic attack and given myself a concussion." I struggled back up, taking Gordon's offered hand for support as I reorganized my crutches.

Astrid watched me silently, her eyes narrowing again. "Were you really attacked by a dragon?"

So she did catch that news as it flew along the school gossip net. I'd wondered if she followed that. I thought about my answer for a moment, remembered something she said a while ago (what had that been about, again? I couldn't remember), and tugged up my shirt.

She didn't precisely gape at the long white scar, but her eyes got gratifyingly wide. "I guess you were," she said, sounding almost impressed. After staring at it for a moment she looked back at my face. "Did you kill it?" Her tone suggested that she was inclined to think not, but would just once give me the benefit of doubt.

I rolled my eyes and let my shirt drop. "I survived. That's victory enough for me."

Gordon cleared his throat. "So. Are we all good here?"

I opened my mouth and – wow, I really need to think more carefully about what comes out: it wasn't until after the words hit the air that I realized I could be poking the tiger with a stick. Again.

"You're not fearless, Astrid, you're brave; there's a difference."

Astrid stared at me like I'd lost my mind. Then she slowly nodded. "Okaayyy…we're good here."

"All right." Gordon unhooked Astrid. "Go run your laps."

I watched her go join the rest of her team. "What, no shaking hands?"

"Figured that'd be pushing it."

"Yeah, you're probably right," I sighed. I limped forwards to do my job.