A/N – Whoo! An update. I planned on getting at least one story done before the next season of RTTE dropped, but, as you can see, that's probably not going to happen. Anyway, here we are! Enjoy!

X

Chapter 7

Hiccup rolled over and felt a strange pillow touch his cheek. It smelled of someone else, not of himself. Sitting up, it became apparent that he was no longer in his own bed, or in his house, but in the house that belonged to the Hofferson's.

He rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. What time was it? His phone no longer sat on the bedside, nor was his red-faced alarm clock there to tell him. No sunshine came from outside. In the absence of the humming air conditioner, crickets and frogs were singing.

From the way his body longed to remain in bed, he knew it must have been after midnight, but before three – after three, his body would have refused to return to sleep.

Hiccup sighed. Why now? Why this point in history? Why couldn't the powers that be have let him sleep until morning?

Someone sighed – a feminine someone – from his other side. Startled, Hiccup threw his attention in the direction.

Mrs. Hofferson slept in the bed beside him, hair tucked into a sleeping cap.

Hiccup blinked at her, but his presence didn't seem to bother her at all, not even as he ruffled the covers on his way out of the bed. She let out a small sigh, asleep, and stayed that way.

Hiccup, now standing beside the bed fully awake, went to the window and peered out from between the curtains. As he suspected, nighttime. The stars were out like he'd seen only in the deserted countryside; the moon shone bright, silvery light over the dark green-blue world.

A small sound, a floor board's careful creak, came from downstairs. Hiccup walked silently across the floor; he didn't think Mrs. Hofferson could see or hear him, but he didn't want to take the chance. Hiccup slipped out of the master bedroom just in time to see a blonde head slip from the last stair and head toward the kitchen.

Astrid?

Hiccup followed. He tiptoed down the stairs and down the hallway toward the kitchen.

Astrid stood in the doorway. Her brother, Willie, had been caught sneaking out the backdoor. He carried a knapsack over his shoulder. For a moment, neither brother or sister said anything. Then, Willie's lips moved, but Hiccup heard only a muffled blur of a sound. Astrid spoke after him, her blurry words several pitches higher.

Hiccup didn't have to hear their words to know what he'd walked into. Willie, a few months after his father and uncle left to join the Union Army, also left to join the army; he, unlike his father and uncle, wouldn't come back.

Hiccup felt a tightening in his chest as he witnessed the last moment Astrid would see of her bother. It gripped his chest with a desire to grab Willie by the arm and tell him what would happen, but he couldn't. He couldn't change what had happened.

Willie set his knapsack down and bent to hug Astrid. With a quick goodbye, he slipped out the backdoor and into the night, never to return.

Astrid, crestfallen, turned around. She took half a step and then paused; the color drained from her face and her eyes widened.

She'd spotted Hiccup; she looked right at him.

Hiccup pointed to himself, and asked the still air, "Can you see me?"

Before Astrid could answer, the crossing ended and he stood once again in his kitchen, in his house, with the smell of dinner still lingering in the air. Hiccup's heart pounded in his chest.

Heather's charmed laughter rang from the front porch. Fishlegs and she were sitting on the steps outside.

Hiccup checked the time as said by the coffeepot's tiny numbers. Twenty after midnight.

"Shit," Hiccup groaned into his hand. He felt like he'd been run over by a truck. Well, maybe not a truck, but a small car at least.

For something to do, Hiccup started to clean the last of the dinner dishes. Even with the mindless action, he couldn't think straight. What was happening?

The front door opened, and Heather's voice drifted inside, "Thanks for the invite, Hiccup. I'll be seeing you. Oh, and don't forget that book you're supposed to be writing. I want an update on your progress."

"Okay," Hiccup said, only half aware of what she said.

Heather lingered in the door, but closed it. Hiccup heard her voice and Fishlegs's drift down the drive. Heather's car started and the headlights brightened the living room windows as she pulled out. Hiccup set the last dish into the drainer as Fishlegs came back inside. He let out a delighted sigh as he shut the door behind him.

"I take it went well?" Hiccup asked.

"We've made plans to see each other again," Fishlegs said. "Not this weekend; she's got a thing and I've got plans, but next weekend we're having dinner at her place."

"Her place?" Hiccup grinned.

Fishlegs turned a bright shade of red. "Yes. Her place. She has a nice view of the city park." He yawned. "Boy, it's late. I'm hitting the hay. Night, Hiccup."

"Goodnight," Hiccup said.

He listened to Fishlegs trot up the stairs, humming to himself. He sat down at the table and rubbed his face. He hadn't felt remotely tired when he'd woke up in the kitchen, but now he felt utterly exhausted. He waited a while in the kitchen, but no apparition appeared. Hiccup dragged himself up to his bedroom and fell back into bed – his bed, which he shared with no one.

X

Fresh cup of coffee in hand, Hiccup sat down at his computer first thing the next morning. He opened his email and wrote about the crossings; he rewrote several sentences, unsure of how best to say what he wanted to say without making himself sound like he might be losing his mind. He told about each event in turn, as they had happened, and finished with the more recent one that previous evening.

He hesitated to send it to his mysterious friend who went by the screen name HesaCow45. But who else would understand? He watched the blue line slowly make its way across the top of the email field, sending….sending…sent.

Would HesaCow45 know more? He, or she, Hiccup didn't know, seemed to know a lot about most paranormal things, old, new, or half-forgotten. He imagined HesaCow45 living in some European country, in the outskirts of town (he, or she, had mentioned sheep before), in an unassuming cottage; he, or she, would be sitting in an office piled with books, scrolls, and handwritten journals. HesaCow45 would have an older computer that worked like it was built by Nasa (he'd mentioned a friend, or rather, an 'acquaintance' that new a thing or two about computers). Hiccup imagined this 'acquaintance' as some hacker, living low from the authorities.

Hiccup's idea of HesaCow45 was based off his, or her, mysteriousness and profound knowledge of the paranormal and arcane. Most likely, as the way of the internet's inflation, he was a middle-aged, overweight, balding dude living in a tailor park somewhere in Wisconsin. (Wisconsin, because he'd mentioned how good the cheese was at this little shop in town.)

Whatever the case with HesaCow45, Hiccup was glad to have him on board the paranormal boat that was his online community.

Hiccup eyeballed the website, mostly checking the forums, approving 'suspended' comments that had been caught in the spam filter or profanity filter, and updating his own status that appeared near the top of the page, mirrored by Fishlegs. He wrote a quick little line about the Hofferson house, hinting at a bestseller, and left it at that.

Hiccup sighed, leaned back, and drank the rest of his cooling coffee. He got another, and returned to his computer.

Time to do the deed: write.

He opened his rough draft of his first chapter, gave it a one-over, and started on Chapter Two. Heather had suggested using an outline, but Hiccup had never found use for one.

Should he mentioned the trans-time crossing?

Somehow…he felt not. Not yet, anywhere. He'd be sending the chapter to Heather when finished, and he didn't want her to know just yet. Of course, there's the real possibility that Fishlegs had mentioned it.

History. He should start with the history of the house.

Hiccup opened the desk drawer and pulled out his notebook of notes for the house and he family, starting with the beginning when Randal and Jacob built it.

In 1848, brothers Randal and Jacob Hofferson arrived in New York City. As recent immigrants from Norway, the brothers were treated with skepticism and prejudice. They made their way across the United States to what is now

Hiccup's fingers froze over the keys; something silvery caught his attention. It started at the top of the stairs, illuminated as a golden glow in the sunlight that poured from the window above the door.

Astrid, glorious in her glow, made her way down the stairs. Hiccup stared, transfixed, at how clear she'd become. Her hair seemed a faint shade of yellow, while her dress glowed in more of a baby blue. The buttons that lined the front of her dress were dark blue. Her eyes…he could see them…where blue.

At first, she didn't appear to notice him. She stood for a moment in the foyer, eyes on the door, and then she casually glanced toward him.

Noticing his stare, her entire posture changed. Her shoulders straightened; the slight slouch in her back vanished; she folded her graceful fingers together in front of her.

"I saw you last night," Hiccup said.

She walked into the office. A crease formed in her brow.

"You were younger," Hiccup said. "I-I'm not sure how to explain it without sounding like I've lost my mind."

She made her way into the room and sat down in the chair in the corner. She motioned with her hand; her pale lips moved, but he didn't hear anything.

"I saw your brother leave," he said.

The crease between her brows deepened. She frowned. She seemed to be thinking. She placed a hand against her lips. Her lips then moved.

"I can't hear you."

She appeared to sigh.

"I know. It would be a lot easier if I could," he said. He tapped his fingers on his notes. "I saw your brother leaving. He left in the middle of the night. You caught him."

Astrid stood up and moved into the kitchen; Hiccup followed. She went to the backdoor. She pointed to the floor and mouthed the word, Willie.

"Yes, he stood there," Hiccup said.

Astrid moved to where she had stood, pointed to herself, then to the floor. Then she walked to the threshold of the foyer, pointed at Hiccup, then to the floor.

His heart fell into his socks.

"Y-you…saw me?"

She nodded.

"You remember me?"

She nodded again.

Her piercing stare had seen him, and her ghost remembered it.

"You remembering seeing me more than once?"

She nodded. She reached for her hair.

"I saw you brushing your hair," Hiccup said.

She nodded.

Hiccup sat down. The world didn't quite make sense anymore, and he considered his tolerance for insanity fairly high.

"Did you…I mean, did you remember me before I'd moved in?"

Astrid nodded.

Hiccup rubbed his face vigorously in his hands. What did that mean? He didn't understand. Had he messed up the timeline? Had he screwed up someone's life by making it so they wouldn't exist? Had Willie not gone, but because he'd interfered, had he gone? Had Hiccup sent Willie to die in the war?

A cold, but soft, hand landed on his shoulder. Hiccup jumped.

Astrid knelt down beside the chair with a warming, welcoming smile on her ghostly lips. Even dead, she looked beautiful.

"I-I keep going back," Hiccup confessed. "To when you and your family lived here. I keep seeing glimpses…I-I don't know what it means. It's never happened to me before."

Astrid's hand squeezed. Her hand felt like a normal human hand, as alive as his own, but much sturdier and calm.

"I keep thinking that I'll find out what happened to you," he said.

Her eyes softened.

"Have you remembered?"

She shook her head.

"Each time I go back…I can see you a little clearer," he said.

She touched his cheek, and a gentle roll rose in her shoulders. She even made a shrug look graceful.

"I'll find out," Hiccup said, "I promise, Astrid. I'll find out what happened to you. I'll help you move on. Even if it kills me."