Author's Note: sorry this took so long. This chapter was WAY too hard to write for some reason, and I've also been very busy. Anyway, enough excuses – onward!

Hiccup's POV

Dark, cold, crowded.

I was…not flying, exactly, but drifting rapidly through space with a lot of other dragons. There were so many, all around me, that I couldn't see anything of my surroundings; just, vaguely, where I was going. Something very heavy was secured to my chest – my tribute to the Dream Alpha. Other dragons were carrying their tributes, too, and I knew that anyone with a load much smaller than half their weight was going to die.

Mine was large; almost as big as I was. And it was moving, pulling at my bonds and making me very nervous. It wouldn't do me any good to fly the Maw empty-handed: I would go down the Alpha's throat before I could even think of slipping into the safety of the Void. It wasn't necessary to use my wings in this place, so I wrapped them around my load to keep it from struggling free.

"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere."

…Wait. Was that Astrid? Astrid was my tribute?

No. No, no, no, I'm not throwing Astrid in there…

I couldn't breathe. My mind was on fire as I tried to fight the compulsion that held me on this course. I had to get out of there, with my load, before I got in range of the Dream Alpha's personal attention.

"Wake up; you're dreaming."

There was the Dream Alpha's open jaws ahead, looking like the mouth of a cave. Dragons were throwing their tributes to be caught by that powerful inhale and trying to escape into the Void; how well they succeeded depended on whether or not the size of their tribute was enough to disrupt the pull. I was rapidly running out of time…

"Hiccup! Snap out of it!"

Hiccup. The disruption in the Way Things Were. That was what Toothless called me.

I wasn't a dragon, so I shouldn't be here. That meant I was…

I'm waking up now. Right…NOW!

I jarred awake so violently that, for a moment, my nightmare blended with reality. My hands tightened convulsively and I whispered hoarsely, "Not a tribute."

"What?"

It really was Astrid, peering at my face anxiously.

"You're not a tribute. I'll never let you be a tribute. Never." The Dream Alpha was still so real in my mind's eye that, although I had realized it was just a nightmare, I was having extraordinary trouble shaking off the terror.

"Okay, not a tribute," Astrid said soothingly. "Can you let go of my arm now?"

The nightmare finally receded enough that I could take a good look around. I was on the ground next to a bench, my cast was propped up on a backpack…and Astrid was sitting by my side, her left hand tucked under my shirt and both of my hands wrapped around her forearm. Tightly.

"Ah. Sorry." It took a few seconds of coaxing, but I managed to pry my fingers open. "That was…um, what happened?" I had a good guess…

"Scott went bulldog on you, and you went crazy-town on him." Astrid took her arm back and started massaging it carefully. "I had to knock you down and dose you."

Spot-on. "Told you I knew I could trust you," I teased – weakly.

Astrid smirked wryly at me. "And then I had to reassure Fisher that you wouldn't be upset just because he wasn't ready to do what I did."

"Fisher was there?" Then my brain caught up with the rest of what she said, "And…" and after a moment's consideration, I nodded. "I always thought it'd be an outside chance that he'd be able to subdue and sedate me. Given how 'crazy-town' I go, it would need a level of…" I groped for words.

"Knockdown capability? Fisher's a lineman; he tackles people for a hobby."

"I was thinking more along the lines of, 'friendly hostility.' Being willing to punch an ally's lights out in certain circumstances; Fisher doesn't do that."

Astrid opened her mouth – closed it again – and made a face at me. Then she went on. "Then I read Scott the riot act in front of everybody. Told him exactly what I thought of his family spirit, and…pretty much told the whole audience that you were my friend."

"You did what?" I sat bolt upright, astonished…then I swayed a bit, graying out. After being sedated, my body took a bit longer to adjust to new positions. When my vision cleared, I stared at the razor-edged blue letters that hadn't been on my leg this morning. "You signed my cast?"

"Seemed to be what friends did." Astrid's mouth twisted into an expression like she was trying not to laugh. "Fisher apparently considers my autograph to be a warding sign."

He did say something like that at one point, I recalled. "How…big a crowd…was that audience?"

"Let's see. Most of both sporting teams…I'd say twenty kids, easy; maybe twenty-five." Her eyes took on a curious light and she stared intently at my face, as if searching for my reaction. "Ruth's been spreading rumors all over the field."

"What sort of…rumors?" Something about her expression was making me uneasy.

"That we're girlfriend and boyfriend; that we spend nights at each others' houses…"

Okay, I officially had no idea what to say. Was Astrid mad at me? Or at herself? Was…

"If she digs any deeper into the innuendoes or presents proof that I sleep over, then I'll kill her. Otherwise…" Astrid shrugged. "It's protection for both of us."

I stared. "What do you mean…for both of us?"

"Well. If you're my boyfriend, I can fend off idiots by saying I'm already attached – and for the record, way too many of the eligible guys on this island give me the creeps where intimacy is concerned. As for you…" she grabbed the front of my shirt and hauled me to my feet by it, "do I have to explain?" She grabbed my crutches off the bench and pushed them into my hands.

No, she didn't: I understood perfectly what I got out of this. Astrid's a very scary girl, who could and would throttle anyone who tried to steal or break her toys. I wasn't capable of subduing her, so I was like a toy to her – I'd only be her equal partner if she let me.

Equal. Partners. Taking turns in the lead, establishing mutual agreements about where our respective skills were most effective. Having that…with Astrid.

That concept was so beautiful that I knew I needed more drug-free, quality sleep.

"I'm not telling my dad about this, of course."

I blinked at the sudden topic shift. "You're not?"

"I don't know that he'll keep me home and triple the abuse if he learns there's actually a man in my life, but I don't know that he won't. I don't know that he'll hunt you down and kill you, Chief-be-damned, but I don't know that he won't. Safer to keep things the way they are – for now."

"Ah. Put that way, it makes a lot of sense."

"Are…" Astrid hesitated. "Are you telling your dad?"

"Well, not if…not if you don't want me to…" Even as I said the words, however, a script played itself out in my head.

"Guess what, Dad: I have a girlfriend now! We have study sessions together all the time, she helps me get around the school on these crutches…she called me a man once…what? Oh, who is she? Astrid Hofferson. You know, captain of the hockey team…yes, the girl who broke my leg. Yes, I'm serious."

"Why are you smiling?"

"Uh…" I was smiling. Like an idiot. "Just…imagining me telling my dad that the most popular girl at my school decided I was her boyfriend." And called me a man; I still enjoyed that part.

Astrid thought that one over, eyebrow cocked. "What's your imaginary dad saying?"

"He doesn't believe it." I shrugged. "I gotta be honest, though; I'd rather talk about that than try to explain…my new pet."

Astrid's lips pursed. "I can see that." She leaned in. "What are you going to do with Toothless? It's just not going to be practical to have him live at the Belden house, and you can't keep him at your place…"

I paused. "Actually…I think I can help him with the teleportation thing."

"You said that he couldn't…"

"Toothless can't do that by himself anymore because I absorbed the energies that made it possible for him to do that. That's why he had to rewire my brain, because humans can't just handle that power. But he and I – we're connected, I'm sure of it, so there's a very good chance we can do it together." Especially since – because of that nightmare – I was pretty sure I knew how the teleportation worked.

Astrid stared at me like I'd gone crazy, but all she said was, "so when are you going to try it?"

"I don't know. Tonight? Tomorrow night – or morning? I don't like doing experiments on short notice, but time's running out: Dad will be home soon."

"Let's do it tomorrow morning, after you've gotten some real rest."

What? "Astrid…"

"You don't actually think you're going to play with portals to other dimensions without some kind of spotter, do you?" Astrid ran right over my half-formed objections. "You can barely move on your own! You need someone strong enough to pull you out of trouble if things get out of hand; you won't trust any of the grownups or football players – and I understand why – so you're going to need me."

"I…you…well…" She had a point. I could probably get myself out of range if things went wrong in a minor way – but nothing ever went wrong on that kind of scale for me. If an invention or concoction failed, it royally failed. And I couldn't dodge a royal failure without two working legs. "…Okay."

Astrid woke me up early Wednesday morning. With a phone call.

"Hiccup?"

"…'Strid?" I squinted blearily at my alarm clock. "Do you ever sleep?"

"Where are you?"

"In bed. Where sane people are at four-thirty in the morning. Why?"

"I'm at the old Belden house."

That woke me up. "What? Why are you there?"

I could almost hear her shrug. "Because it was the first place I could think of where Toothless would know and there wouldn't be anyone else around to see him come in."

Possibly catching the sound of his name, Toothless sat up and sniffed my cell phone.

"Oh…right. The teleporting practice. All right, just let me…" I yawned, nearly splitting my face, "…let me get dressed, all right?"

Toothless warbled at the phone.

"Good morning, Toothless!" Astrid called, sliding into something almost-but-not-quite babyish. "Don't let Hiccup take too long, okay? I have breakfast for the two of you!"

Some days I wonder if Toothless can actually understand English; the way he started bouncing around and nudging me out of bed, he sure seemed to know what breakfast was.

"All right, all right, I'm up…"

"You'd better be here in ten minutes or less, all right?"

"Fine…" I hung up the phone and organized my crutches. "Wonder what she'd do if I was late?"

I will have you know, it's very hard to get dressed when there's a cast on your leg and a dragon jumping around the room "helping" by throwing clothes at you. By the time I had clean clothes the right way on and right-side-out, we were getting very close to Astrid's ten-minute mark.

"All right, let's go."

Toothless jumped onto my back. No, not like he wanted me to carry him; his feet were still on the floor. But his wings were wrapped around my whole body, crutches and all, and his nose was in my hair. I could feel the prickles of his thoughts linking to mine.

"The old Belden house!"

A bolt of lightning went down my spine, and something made an alarmingly loud crack under my skull. My whole body seemed to short out at once; sparks flared in my eyes before everything went dark.

I gasped, but there was nothing to gasp. My lungs were on fire, my brain felt like it was exploding…for a terrible, heart-stopping instant, I was sure I was dying.

I.

Couldn't.

Breathe.

"Hiccup! HICCUP!"

Astrid?

I hadn't realized that I'd lost sensation in my body until it started coming back. My skin returned to life with pins and needles, and my thrashing limbs stilled as I regained control over them. I was on the ground on my face…I could taste sand. I was on the beach.

Beach. Astrid. That stupid clanging door.

I'd made it.

Toothless shoved his head under my shoulder and gave me a push, rolling me onto my side. Then he warbled in my face, sounding apologetic and rather worried.

I pulled in one breath, then another. My back still hurt, but at least now I could breathe. I blinked sand from my eyes and pulled air into my lungs; I tried to say that I was alright, but somewhere between my chest and my mouth the words weren't coming. Giving up on speech – for the moment – I lifted a shaking hand to pat Toothless.

Astrid grabbed my shoulder. "Hiccup, say something!"

I tried again to speak. This time something actually came out: a groan from the depths of a mausoleum. Fantastic, that'll go a long way towards reassuring her.

"If that was a joke, it wasn't funny." That was Astrid, all right, countering her fright with fury. Any minute now she would be hitting me for scaring her.

Something was clearly wrong with my ability to speak; I started writing in the sand. I kept it simple: IM FINE.

"You're not convincing me that you're fine until you can sit up."

Why wasn't I sitting up, anyway? Everything seemed to be in working order…except that my left arm was going to sleep from my lying on it. And yet, somehow, I couldn't seem to move.

Toothless's tongue probed at my mouth; after a moment's resistance, I let him in. He was probably very worried about me, too, and had the advantage of having a way to determine if my brain was still functioning normally.

"Hiccup, I am so sorry. I was in such a hurry to come for breakfast that I didn't stop to think. I've never had to take anything through the Void that had to still be alive on the other end."

I blinked at the worried vampire-boy. "So basically, you've never learned how to teleport smoothly. That's fine; this is a learning process for both of us. And I survived the trip, so you did something right."

Toothless looked a little more cheerful.

"Hey, I've got a question. Can you teleport somewhere you've never been if I've been there? We're sharing thoughts to do this…"

"Certainly; when I could cross the Void on my own, I could go anywhere that I could sense a mind that I knew. It is how we travel to new places once we've grown too large to be carried by another." Then he felt around my neck and stroked my back (making me feel a little weird), and looked a lot more cheerful. "You can breathe now: I didn't damage your spine. I don't know if it was supposed to make that noise, but it wasn't a bad sign that it did."

Everything spun and I spasmed, coughing as he pulled back.

"What did he say?" Astrid asked from behind my head.

I drew in a deep, real breath, and tried to speak for the third time. At last, I got words out. "That my spine is still whole." I still sounded down-in-a-grave, but at least my voice was working.

"Oh…you were worried about that?" Astrid rubbed my shoulder blade.

"Something made a really loud noise back there when we teleported…it sounded – felt – like my neck broke. I think a little anxiety would be warranted under the circumstances."

"So Toothless gave you some reassurance and you can get up now."

"Actually…" I writhed stiffly, trying to get my pinned arm to function, "…I can't: my arm's asleep."

There was silence for a moment. Then Astrid's hand curled under my neck – "On three," – and before I could get set she hauled me up to a sitting position.

"Hey!" I yelped, half in panic, as I tried to jerk away from her. My senses were reeling, though, and I don't know that I succeeded. "That wasn't nice," I finally grumbled when I thought I was steady again.

Astrid ignored me and rubbed sensation back into my arm and hand. Vigorously. It felt like she was getting a little revenge for the bruises I might have left on her wrist yesterday. And the whole time, she was chatting like it was just another day. "You know, Toothless is being a remarkably good boy; I'd have thought he would be straight into the food."

I glanced at Toothless, who was watching me intently. "I guess he's still worried. About me. He also said that this was the first time he'd teleported somewhere with a load that was supposed to survive the trip completely intact."

Astrid paused and drummed her fingers on my shoulder. "I think I do believe that. Are you sure you're okay?"

No, I wasn't: my skull pounded, my spine felt like it was wrapped in barbed wire, my stomach was in knots, my leg ached with a bone-deep cold inside my cast, and my toes itched like there were bugs trapped in the cast with them. I'd had absolutely no idea teleporting could be so rough on a body.

I nodded anyway. There wasn't a thing Astrid could do about any of that, and very little Toothless could do.

"Good." Astrid put a bag in my lap and shoved another one at Toothless. I don't know what was in his (and he shoved his face in there immediately upon registering the presence of food), but mine smelled of takeout sausage-and-eggs.

I mentioned my gut was knotted up, right?

Toothless hadn't forgotten me completely: when he thought I'd been sitting still too long he pulled his head out of the bag and nudged my arm, wordlessly insisting that I make an effort to get something down my throat. Eventually, to stop the nagging, I took a few bites of the breakfast sandwich, chewed and swallowed; each mouthful seemed to loosen the knots in my stomach a little bit, and by the time I'd forced the third down I realized I actually was rather hungry.

After finishing the sandwich and hash browns I looked at Astrid. "Was that it or is there anything else?"

Astrid looked up – and I caught a brief glimpse of relief before she favored me an amused glance. "When I finish mine, we can all have some fruit."

She hadn't been fooled by my nod.

"Astrid, really," I spread my arms, "The worst of it was in my head; I've worked past it, and I'm feeling much better. There was never any need to worry."

"You might want to check your shirt," Astrid replied with an enigmatic look. "There's a lot of blood on the back, like you'd backed into a painted tree or were sweating it from your spine."

I stared at her for a moment. Then I whipped my shirt over my head and dropped it across my cast – and stared blankly at the blotchy red marks on the green. I literally couldn't comprehend what I was seeing; I couldn't process it.

Astrid cocked her head and looked at my back. "Okay, it doesn't look as bad as I thought it would. Rubbed raw, not beaten bloody – and it's not bleeding anymore, so…"

Finally I thought to look at Toothless. "What…" I began – then I paused, not sure what I was about to ask. What did you do seemed too accusatory, while what was that seemed too stupid.

Toothless opened his ribcage.

I kid you not: he sat up, tucked his arms back, and his chest and belly opened up like some fleshy version of a very elaborate cabinet. I could make out his heart, lungs, and guts pulsing their rhythms, and a couple of other lung-shaped organs that were faintly glowing. There was also something moving in there that didn't look like typical animal insides – it could maybe have been a second vertebral column, but it was very spiky and jiggling like it was made of rubber instead of bone.

Astrid turned quickly away with a hand clamped over her lips, making a noise like she'd just thrown up a bit in her mouth.

I couldn't blame her. That was very disturbing, and way too much information. "Okay, I…I get the picture."

"What picture did you get, exactly?" Astrid demanded. "I'm going to see that picture in my nightmares for weeks!"

"There's, um…" I gestured helplessly at Toothless as he closed back up, "…A time or two he's mentioned to me how he can absorb things he captures as tribute. That's how."

Astrid snuck a careful look back at Toothless. "He…swallows them with that…big…sideways mouth?"

"Ye…nuh…erm…I'll…get back to you on that later." I glanced at her face, which wasn't a normal color. "When I've had a chance to get a lucid-dream explanation, and you've had a chance to digest."

"I'm absolutely fine," Astrid muttered through her teeth. Her defiance was half-hearted, though, like she didn't even care if I believed or not.

I got my lucid dream right away, and Toothless was hanging out at the Belden house – probably exploring – while Astrid and I went to school.

Several hours later Astrid chose to sit out of hockey practice on account of an injury (she hadn't been clear for Gordon or me what the injury was, but the way she'd been walking and sitting all day suggested it was a bruised hip), and I was keeping her company on the bench. That was when we finally got back to the topic of Toothless's disturbing ability.

"Swallowing them isn't a bad guess," I admitted. "What he does is, he melds his musculoskeletal system with that of his tribute; the closer to on the spine he is, the more likely it is that he paralyzes the tribute so that it can't fight back and possibly get dropped. He can absorb things fully, if they're small enough, but he didn't generally bother with tributes because he had to drop them quickly when he got back to the nest."

"Did he paralyze you?" Astrid wanted to know, morbidly curious – in spite of herself, I was sure.

"And I should know the answer to that because…"

"Uh, because you were there?"

I shook my head. "I really understand now why they call it the Void. There's no light, no warmth, no air…it's so completely empty of everything that it deadens your ability to feel. I don't know if I was even trying to move or not; it was like my body was gone – and anyway what was of greatest concern at that moment was that I couldn't breathe."

For a long moment we were both silent, thinking about the Void. Then I shrugged.

"Toothless apologized again; taking a deep breath was such a basic, fundamental part of his early teleporting lessons that he forgot to pass it on."

"You know what you forgot to say, when Toothless…opened up like that?"

"What?" I could think of a couple things that I could have said when that happened.

Astrid mimicked my voice. Sort of. "I didn't know you could do that."

I laughed a little. "First of all, I don't sound like that. Second, I wasn't all that surprised." I tapped my chest, drawing my finger down the scar. "He was French-kissing me, his hands and feet were hanging onto my shoulders and hips, and a tail-whiplash would be much smoother-edged and probably at more of an angle. How then could he have marked me if he didn't have some kind of weapon mounted on his chest?"

Astrid stared at me like I'd morphed into something.

"What? It makes sense, doesn't it? You've seen both my scar and my raw back; didn't they look similar?"

"No – I mean, you're right, but it's not that. I think that's the most you've ever said about when Toothless attacked you. And you're not freaking out."

Then my heart lurched, but it didn't escalate into a full-blown panic; I was able to retrieve my inhaler at a reasonable pace, instead of my usual scramble for the thing.

Astrid looked sideways at me, vaguely contrite, as I steadied back out. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to say, 'sorry I mentioned it'?"

I put my inhaler away and thought about it. "Well, if you really want to, but I won't insist on it. I'm making progress – I can kind of dance around what happened that day, and…well, like you saw just now, if I start somewhere else I can actually say quite a bit on the subject without even noticing that I have. But I haven't finished healing yet."

Astrid thought for a moment and evidently decided she wasn't going to actually apologize.

"Speaking of healing…um…should I ask what happened to your hip?"

"Not my dad. Directly."

"Huh?"

"Last night I heard him trampling up the stairs and jumped out the window. Landed in the mangled old pine; wrenched my leg some. A night in the tree didn't help much either – I couldn't see well enough to get down – although it wasn't any worse than trying to sleep on a bunch of nasty bruises. Falling out of the tree this morning was the crowning indignity. Not my best landing…though not my worst, either." Astrid glanced at me wryly. "And if it were really serious, I would have asked Toothless to fix it. I'm not stupid, and I'm not a masik…" she paused and glared at my cast.

"Masochist?" I offered with a smile. "Now why would anybody think you got off on physical abuse?"

Her fist connected with my shoulder. "Smart-ass." But she was smiling back.

Maybe I was the masochist. I couldn't seem to resist baiting her.

We watched the girls on the field for a while. Their form was good, but they were missing their leader. Several times one player or another glanced our way, as if in search of praise or to see if Astrid was still there. With me.

"Gonna be rumors about us everywhere," I commented.

Astrid snorted. "There already were rumors about us everywhere. If I hadn't already decided I didn't care anymore what anyone else thought, I'd never be able to show my face in public again."

I glanced sideways at her. "So…if you're feeling afraid, you'll go ahead and show it?"

Definitely a masochist – but this time, Astrid just laughed.

"Hell no. Hofferson rule number one, never show fear. When they know you're scared of them, they won't let up."

I nodded. "I've heard a variation on that: once you start running, they'll never let you stop."

"Exactly." Then Astrid made a face. "It was a strategic withdrawal," she muttered to herself.

What? Oh – her jump out the window. That was so Astrid, to look back on her narrow escape from another session of physical abuse and feel the need to justify it. I would have just been thanking my lucky stars for the ability to make a clean getaway.

"Of course it was," I assured her. "What would have happened if he had caught you? I think you'd have way more than a wrenched hip." Something occurred to me. "Have you ever tried to fight back?"

Astrid looked at me like I was out of my mind.

"I know, I know, he's bigger than you. But that's never stopped you from hitting guys before; and he's forfeited any respect you might owe him by abusing you."

Slowly, her head shook from side to side. Then she jerked. "Wait, I did fight back once. How could I have forgotten? I must have really had a concussion."

"Hm?"

"That was the night before I wound up on your doorstep."

Now I knew where she was going. "I guess he didn't take your defiance well."

"Mm-mmm. In his defense, I think he was also more drunk than usual." Astrid sighed. "I hate myself for defending him; you're right, I don't owe him anything, and yet…"

"Was he a good father before?"

Astrid was quiet for a long while. "I don't remember those days very well anymore…I think so."

"That's why. The part of you that's defending him is the…" I paused for a moment, uncertain how to continue without pissing her off.

"The inner child who still remembers the man he once was and wishes he would go back to that?" Astrid finished for me, the side of her mouth twisting.

Since those were the exact words I'd been trying to avoid, all I could do was shrug.