Chapter 17: Finders, Keepers

Hiccup woke with a start to the Wump! of something large and heavy landing near his head.

"Wha' the bloody hell is this?"

"Wha…?" Hiccup started, still trying to gain his surroundings through his sleep-riddled head. He rolled over to his back and raised himself onto his elbows as he blinked away the blurriness of sleep to find a mass of red curls standing over him, sky blue eyes glaring down at him. He took a quick a look around. He didn't see Toothless and figured the dog was out, sniffing around the house or with the Other DunBrochs. Hiccup's gaze froze as his eyes landed on a black duffle bag that had been thrown onto the nightstand by his bed. Hiccup shot up to a sitting position.

"My bag…Where'd you get that?" he asked, looking back up at Merida. It was the duffle bag he'd left home with. He hadn't seen it in weeks, so he'd just assumed the DunBrochs had overlooked it when they'd taken him with them while he was unconscious. He'd expected to never see it again.

"An' jus' wha' the hell do yeh think yer doin' caryin' around somethin' liek this?" Merida asked, ignoring his own question.

"Well, obviously, I wasn't the one caring it around for the past few weeks. That was you."

Merida continued to glare at him, obviously unamused by his first class sass. Suddenly, she reached down and yanked the bag open. Hiccup's gaze fell to the bag, its guts now laid out for all to see. His expression fell.

"You went through my bag?"

"Bet yer bloody arse Aye did. Good thing, too."

Hiccup looked back up to round face above him, bright blue eyes livid as they bore into him. He didn't get it. This girl had hardly spoken to him at all for the past three weeks that he'd been traveling with the DunBrochs, and now, all of a sudden, here she is, accusing him of…wait, what was she accusing him of? She'd found his duffle bag. Big deal. It's not like he'd even had access to it for the past few weeks, much less been able to use what was inside.

"So just what's your question here?" Hiccup asked, trying to get a handle on the situation.

"Yeh see, wha' Aye'm wonderin' hear is jus' why does one person need to be carryin' so much heat wit them?" Merida asked as she jabbed her finger at his still open duffle bag, no doubt referring to the nearly ten guns packed inside.

"Tell me again why we're doing this?"

Anna rolled her eyes.

"We're looking for my sister. You know, I'm starting to think Astrid was right about you."

"I know that," Kristof shot back, glancing over his shoulder at the redhead saddled behind him. "But I thought she ran away from the group. Why are you looking for her if she left you?"

Anna's face fell. Without even looking, Kristoff could feel as she shrank away form him, moving back a few inches on their swaying stead as they continued further into the ruined and abandoned city. Dilapidated buildings continued to pass by them on either side, some only half-standing, while others were barely more than pile of rubble. A breeze spun around them, stirring the garbage and trash that littered the street as the sun continued to rise over the horizon behind them.

"She's my sister," she said quietly. "I can't just leave her."

"Why'd she run away in the first place?"

Anna let out a sigh as she gazed off to find yet another empty street pass by on their right, no sign of her sister in sight.

"Because it's what she does," Anna finally said. "She likes to be alone, and I think that's why she ran off. Elsa's always been…distant. I mean, we used to get along great as children. She used to be my best friend. And then…I don't know. Then I just stopped seeing her. She stopped coming out of her room and stopped talking to me. At first, I thought I'd done something wrong. I thought she was mad at me and that I had to fix it. But then I realized, it wasn't just me. She stopped talking to everybody. No one would see her for weeks on end because she just wouldn't come out of her room. The maids went in to clean and take food to her—"

"Wait, wait, wait."

Anna stopped, puling back to look at Kristoff in surprise. He twisted in his seat far enough to give her a disbelieving look.

"You had maids?"

Anna furrowed her eye brows, a pout forcing its way to her mouth.

"We lived in a big house," she defended herself.

Kristoff rolled his eyes as he turned back around to face the road.

"Geez, talk about spoiled rich kids."

"All right then, mister high and mighty," Anna huffed. "What kind of family do you have?"
"Had."

Anna blinked in surprise. An uncomfortable silence fell between them, the atmosphere suddenly losing it's mood.

"…Sorry."

"It's fine," Kristoff said with a shrug. "Who hasn't lost their family by now, right?"

"Do you miss them?"

"Of course. I came from a big family. Well, came from probably isn't the right phrase. More like taken in by."

"You were adopted?"

"Yup, me and this big lug here," he said, reaching down to give Sven a pat on the neck. "Taken in by the biggest, rowdiest, loudest family North of the boarder. I always called them a bunch of trolls. But they were good people. All of them. Took care of Sven and me as if we were really there's. Couldn't ask for better."

"What happened to them?"

Kristoff let out a sigh. He continued to look straight ahead, so Anna couldn't get a look at his face, but she could see as his shoulders slumped forward just the tiniest bit. When he finally answered, it wasn't with the same lively voice he normally had.

"Caught the virus. The older ones did, at least. I was a town over, selling refrigerators when the virus started getting bad. As soon as I heard, I rushed back home, but it didn't matter. There wasn't a cure. There was nothing I could do. Next thing I knew, the younger ones had caught it, too. And then, it was only a matter of time before I was on my own."

"The same thing happened to my parents," Anna said in a quiet voice.

"I'm sorry."

"Me, too."

Silence settled on them again, the only noise being the clop clop of Sven's hooves on pavement and the wobbling whistle of the wind snaking its way through the empty city streets. They continued to pass empty street after empty street, Anna's directions keeping them away from the more zombie infested parts of the city. After a few more minutes ticked by each of the two reindeer riders lost in their own thoughts, Kristoff broke the silence.

"So your sister," he started. "If she's so determined to be on her own, why not let her?"

"Like I said," Anna said with a shrug. "We're sisters. I can't just give up on her. Even though she keeps shutting me out, I can't stop trying. Does that make sense?"

Kristoff glanced over his shoulder at her, an understanding smile on his face.

"Yeah. She's your family. And that's what family's for, right?"

Hiccup stared at the open duffle bag and then looked back up at Merida.

"It's protection," he said with a shrug, eyes darting away. "You do the same exact thing."

"No, it's not," Merida said pointedly. "Protection is carryin' around a sword or a bow. Packin' twenty guns wit yeh liek your afraid to loose them is not protection."

"What's it matter to you?" Hiccup asked, gaze snapping back to the Scotts girl standing over him. "They're mine, anyways. If you didn't like them, why'd you take them in the first place?"

"Aye took them because Aye wanted teh know why yeh had them."

"Took an awful long time to ask, then, didn't you?"
"Wha' Aye choose teh do wit mai tyme is mai business!"

"It's not if you're carrying my guns around with you!"

"Oh, so they are yours?"

Hiccup froze, his face falling. Silence draped over them, swallowing his words. He swallowed and ripped his gaze away from the redhead to stare at the covers pulled across his lap.

"No, they're not."

"Aye knew it. Yeh stole them didn't yeh?"

"They're my Dad's."

Merida practically choked.

"Y-Yer…"

"Yeah," Hiccup muttered, still looking at his lap. "My Dad used to take me shooting and hunting with him when I was younger. I wasn't any good at it and pretty soon he stopped bringing me all together. We never really got along when I got older, so those hunting trips are the few good memories I have left of him."

The room fell quiet, Hiccup's words hanging in the air as Merida continued to stare at him. Memories of her own father taking her on hunting trips flashed through her mind's eye. She didn't know much about the scrawny boy with the missing foot sitting in the bed right in front of her, but she did realize he wasn't with anyone except for that bloody dog when they'd found him. That was enough to assume the worst of his family.

"Tch."

The silence was interrupted as Merida made a disgusted sound in her throat. Hiccup looked up, surprised by the sound, only to find the other girl leaning in towards him, hands braced on either side of him and invading his space as a snarl graced her features.

"Aye don' care where they come from," she hissed at him. "Jus' keep the damned things away from mai family, got it?"

Without another word, the redhead straightened up and spun in her heal, slamming the door behind her as she left. Hiccup stared at the closed door in stunned silence, wondering what the hell had just happened. It took him a few dazed moments before his gaze fell to his duffle bag that she'd left sitting on the nightstand.

"No way!"

"No, it's totally true! Swear to God."

"You really used to talk to paintings?"

Anna snorted through her own laugher, Kristoff's rolling laugh joining hers.

"Okay," she said through gasps of air. "But that's not near as weird as giving your reindeer a voice."

"What?" Kristoff asked, affronted. "I didn't give him anything. That's his actual voice."

To which Anna's response was another fit of laughter, rocking back in her seat on the reindeer's back.

They'd been at it for hours. The sun had risen high over the tops of the city buildings and began to beat down on them. The day had mostly been spent trudging along in a silence that was only occasionally interrupted by discussions and conversations about what their lives had been before the virus hit. The hours wore on, one by one, with only empty ally ways to discouraging them. Eventually, they stumbled onto topics and stories that had them laughing hard enough to burst at the seams. There had been one incident, where the sound of their laughter had attracted a few shambling dead-beats, but with some lucky maneuvering, they managed to avoid a fight. From then on, the two were careful to keep their laughter as quiet as possible.

Kristoff was still doubled over the Sven's reigns, laughing as quietly as he could, when he suddenly felt a hand grip his shoulder.

"Krsitoff, shut up."

The blonde glanced over his shoulder at Anna, his laughter dying in an instant when he saw her face.

"Do you hear that?" she asked, her voice urgent as her eyes darted from building to building, the look on her face that same as a mother's who's child had been submerged under water for too long, desperately looking for any sings of life.

Kristoff pulled on the reigns, bringing Sven to a stop as he reached down to rub his stead's neck reassuringly. And then, Kristoff froze, his ears straining as a distant sound filtered through the air to them.

"Gunshots…?" he muttered, trying to locate where the sound was coming from.

"It's Elsa."

Krsitoff spun around, his head snapping up at the comment.

"What? How do you know?"

"Because I just do," Anna said, still staring off into the distance at the buildings that surrounded them. "Come on," she said suddenly as she gripped his shoulder tighter. "She's that way."

Kristoff gave a tug of the reigns and directed Sven in the direction of Anna's pointing. With some hit and miss navigating, the three travelers came upon a skyscraper that reached towards the heavens. It was disheveled, as were most buildings after the panic from the virus hit. Graffiti left colorful murals and tag art over the grungy looking walls. A good deal of the windows had been knocked out as well, leaving the building to look like a soulless shell.

And then, near the top of this eighty-story monster of a building, Anna and Kristoff could see flashes of light, the sounds of gunshots appearing to be coming from the same place.

There was a sudden, Earth-shattering scream as something fell out of one of the windows. A dead-beat landed a few feet away from them with a wet crack!, its brains splattering all over the sidewalk in some twisted for of new-aged street art, the impact making both humans and reindeer jump.

The next thing Kristoff saw was Anna running full-tilt towards the building, lute in hand. He hadn't even realized she'd dismounted. With a quick shout at Sven to "Stay!" Kristoff grabbed his pick-axe and sprinted after Anna into the black and ominous mouth of the building's empty front doors.

The days continued to tick by, one by one. With each passing sunset, Hiccup grew healthier and healthier. His fever had broken, and he's stump had healed enough that he even managed to hobble around with a crutch and his prosthetic for an hour or two at a time.

Fergus had even taken up to teaching Hiccup to sword fight, when he had the strength for it. Hours would be spent with the two of them hobbling around on fake legs, lunging at each other with swords from Fergus's apparently eternal armory, the large Scotts man shouting tips and pointers to the scrawny brunette, with Toothless watching curiously from the sidelines. As time wore on, Hiccup found himself being able to spend more and more time with the DunBrochs, as opposed to observing them from a sick-room. He'd and Toothless would play with the triplets, the canine playfully nipping at toes and noses. Hiccup had even managed to set up a sort of sign language with the three little ones, finding a way to communicate and talk with them. He'd even found himself in the kitchen more than once with Elinor, learning to cook and finding a situation he had never experienced before: talking with a mother.

After the run-in with Merida, Hiccup had decided to chuck the guns. She was right, after all. There really was no reason for him to be caring so many of them around, other than for nostalgia. And he didn't even need them all for that. Not to mention they were practically useless for the most part without a silencer. Guns, with their loud explosions, were the surest way to attract the infected. Instead, Hiccup had elected to keep two handhelds, tucked into the back waistband of his pants. The rest of the guns and the duffle bag were left behind as the group moved on to the next house.

The absence of the duffle had not gone unnoticed by Merida. Hiccup could see as the redhead became noticeably less tense when near him. Not that that one duffle bag had solved everything. The redhead was still cold towards him, barely sparing him more than a few clipped sentences. More than often, he'd caught her glaring at him in the midst of Fergus's fencing lessons or playing with the triplets or talking with Elinor. Not that Hiccup hadn't tried to break the ice with her. He'd attempted more than a few times to strike up a conversation with the girl, only to get a cold shoulder in response. No matter what he did, the redhead continued to hate him, and with no clear explanation as to why.

"Aye told them teh leave yeh, yeh know."

The family was just about to settle down for the night, with Elinor, Fergus, and the boys huddled around a fire set alight in the fireplace they'd found in the living room of their newly commandeered house. The boys sat, destracted with poking and teasing each other as Fergus bellowed out a story he must've told a dozen times by now. He and Merida were removed slightly from the others. The redhead was sprawled out on the couch. Hiccup was sitting with his back propped up against a soft arm-chair, using the light of the fire to draw a few rough sketches in his note-pad as Toothless rested curled against his side. Hiccup looked up in surprise at the sudden comment, turning his eyes on the redhead that had her head resting on one of the couches arm rests.

"What?" he asked.

"Mai Mum an' Dah'd," she explained without taking her eyes off her family gathered around the fireplace. "When we found yeh, Aye told them teh leave yeh teh die. Told 'em yeh weren't worth the trouble."

Hiccup stared at her for a few tense seconds, this new-found information still processing.

"Well," he said finally. "That's rather romantic."

Merida scoffed as she dragged her gaze away from the fire-place pow-wow to glare at Hiccup.

"Don' get it wrong, yeh nob. Aye'm still waitin' fer the first chance to kick you an' yer mutt teh the curb." She turned to look at her family once more, her eyes growing distant and her voice becoming low. "So don' think yer free teh get comfy. Yer not stayin' fer long. Aye'll make sure of that," she muttered into couch's the armrest, knowing full well that Hiccup could still hear every word.