A/N – Hello again! Thank you all for your wonderful feedback and enjoyment of this story. It's becoming one of my favorites. You have no idea of how amazing and spine-tingly it feels to read your reviews saying how much you're liking this, how excited you are for an update – it all gives me that sense of validation that I'm not doing this for nothing. It gives me more confidence in what I'm doing – in what I want to do with my life. (I'm an indie author.) So, thank you from the bottom, top, middle, and side of my heart – the whole heart – for being awesome readers!

No, you're not going crazy. I know my last update was literally less than a week ago. Funny story – I got back into the swing of this ghost-AU and I totally finished it this past weekend. Not kidding. I updated chapter 7 and then continued, three days straight, until I hit the end, Chapter 19. No, I don't have much of a life. Yeah, I know, shocking. That means you'll probably be getting regular weekly updates like I originally wanted to do when I started writing fan fiction. Whoo!

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Chapter 8

Hiccup woke early. The sunlight barely glowed through the curtains, a gray-blue, signaling that dawn had not yet completely broken. He didn't move at first. It felt as though he'd been sleeping too much, and yet not enough. He blinked a few times, making sure that it was indeed his room he woke up in – it was – and slowly got out of bed. He meandered down to the coffee pot.

Fishlegs snored lightly in the guest room.

Hiccup fixed the pot and hit the 'brew' button; he poured the leftover coffee in a clean mug and warmed it in the microwave. Standing beside the microwave, waiting for the minute to pass, he stared out the kitchen window over the sink. The world slowly came to life as the sun inched closer and closer to his side of the world, warming the dew and the stars.

To think, Astrid might have stared at the same view over one hundred and fifty years ago. Or…Hiccup quickly did the math in his head…one hundred and thirty-six years. Still, something in his gut told him the view hadn't changed hardly at all.

What would it be like to be trapped in a house for so long? Each day passing without company, without friends or family, without anyone that could see or talk to you; Hiccup considered himself introverted and he prioritized his private time, but he needed to talk to other people now and again, in person, not online and impersonally. And Astrid hadn't been able to talk to anyone since her death. How terrible. It dropped a rock into his stomach to think about.

His sympathy for those trapped in the between world had been one of the founding reasons he started his ghost hunting career. He wanted to help those that no one else could help. If he was the only one that could see or hear them, then he held the highest obligation to help them. To turn his back on people that he could clearly help would be a form of treason to humanity, cruelty – and he wouldn't have been able to live with himself.

As a child, he'd wanted to be a doctor for the same reason. He wanted to help people. He'd had the dream to have his own little walk-in clinic; it wasn't fair that people couldn't go to the doctor because their insurance cost them too much, or their deductible was too high. That dream, unfortunately, fizzled out when he discovered his squeamishness and dislike of hospitals and the extreme neediness of some people.

The microwave beeped, and Hiccup turned around. He reached for the handle of the door, but his hand never reached it. Instead, the microwave vanished. In its place was an open tin of ointment. Beside it, bandages.

His stomach dropped out at the smell: blood, alcohol, and human stick.

He stood in the Hofferson's house, he knew, but he didn't want to turn around. From the sounds that came from the kitchen right behind him, someone was in pain – bloody pain.

"Hold still or you'll make it worse," said Mrs. Hofferson.

"Just do it and get it over with!" said an older male, hoarse.

Hiccup inhaled and turned; he turned in time to see Mrs. Hofferson remove a bloody bandage off a middle-aged man's thigh. Blood had congealed and mixed with puss; Hiccup gagged. Infection. He fell back against the countertop and held on. What would happen if he passed out in the past? Would his vomit stay in the past or travel back to his own kitchen?

Mrs. Hofferson dabbed the wound with a cloth doused in something sharp-smelling and then reached for a tin of ointment similar to the one on the counter.

"Drat, we're nearly out," Mrs. Hofferson said, tossing the empty tin aside. "Astrid, grab the one from the counter."

Astrid appeared; she'd been standing out of the way. She might have been nine years old, give or take – Hiccup was horrible with ages. She reached through Hiccup as if he hadn't been standing there and handed the second tin to her mother.

Mrs. Hofferson smoothed a healthy dose of it onto the strange man's leg.

"We'll not wrap it for a while, that wound needs to breath," she said firmly.

Mrs. Hofferson stood. Her hair had been pinned back, but strands of it had fallen about her face. She looked frazzled; her dress was stained and wrinkled and bags hung under her eyes. The man laid on a cot; he wore a union uniform.

Mrs. Hofferson washed her hands in the sink and mumbled, "This war won't leave anyone left to fight."

Astrid stood to the side, ashen-faced.

"Astrid, go find that boy and tell him his father will be fine," Mrs. Hofferson said. "He can come in now if he wants."

Without a word, Astrid set off for the front of the house. Hiccup followed; he wanted far away from the hospital scene. Astrid ran outside to the porch where a young boy, maybe ten years old, sat sulking.

"Mother says your father will be alright," Astrid said.

"That's what they said about my mother, too," said the boy. "She died a week later."

"Well, if your mother had been in my mother's care, she would have told you the truth," Astrid said matter-of-factly.

The boy didn't say anything for a while. Astrid, seemingly keen on the impact of her words and tension in the air, sat down beside the boy.

"If my father dies, I'll be orphaned," said the boy. "They'll send me off to that horrible place, that orphanage. I've seen that mistress there beating the children in the yard. Everyone's seen it, but no one does anything."

"Do you have any other family?" Astrid asked.

"I've got an uncle on my mother's side, but he's fighting for the south," the boy said grimly. "Father says he'll never welcome scum like that in his home again."

"Well…if…the worst happened," Astrid said tentatively, "I'm sure Mother would let you stay here. It's been lonely since everyone left for the war."

The boy looked sideways at Astrid. He said, "Why would she?"

Astrid shrugged, and said, "She needs a man to chop the wood, she says. I can't, and she doesn't like to."

"I can chop wood like a man," the boy said, puffing out his chest and pointing to himself. "Everyone says so."

"And sometimes, a snake will find its way into the kitchen," Astrid said. "Mother hates them something terrible. I don't like them either, and I wish someone else would have to pick them up."

"I'm not afraid of snakes," said the boy, looking more delighted by the moment.

"Then it's settled," Astrid said with the same affirmation as her mother, "You'll stay here to chop would and pick up snakes."

Hiccup laughed; how sweet. In 2016, they'd never just let a stray boy stay at someone's house. No, all the "officials" and do-gooders would want him put into the system, tossed about in foster care.

Hiccup had learned enough about the foster system from Heather to know that it didn't always work like they said it did. She had the scars to prove it, too.

"Mother also said you can go in and see him, if you'd like," Astrid said.

The boy stood. "Might as well, I don't want him to die thinking I don't care about him."

Astrid and the boy went back into the house. Hiccup lingered a step behind them. When they entered the kitchen, Hiccup stood in the doorway so that he couldn't see the sick man on the cot.

"Eret, my boy, come here," said the sick man.

Hiccup leaned against the doorframe as the sick man began to talk; no sooner had the first words left his mouth, than the world shifted so suddenly that Hiccup missed it. In one blink, the kitchen returned to his own. The microwave let out a shrill beep.

"Hiccup?" Fishlegs asked. He stood at the bottom of the stairs.

"Yeah?" Hiccup asked. He walked to the microwave and tasted his coffee. Cold. He reset the timer for another minute.

"Were you…just now…are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Hiccup said. "I went back. I had another of those…trans-time things, but I'm okay. Why? Do I look like I'm slowly losing my mind?"

He'd said it as a joke, but Fishlegs didn't laugh.

Fishlegs said, "A little bit, yeah."

Fishlegs worked on a few things for the website, mostly the technical side of things that Hiccup had never grasped. Fishlegs was a tech wizard; Hiccup would have an idea of what he wanted on the site, and in a few days – or weeks, depending on the request – Fishlegs would have it up and running.

Hiccup took his notebook to the second floor balcony in the meantime to brainstorm about his book. He reclined in one of the old chairs and rested his socked feet on the railing. try as he might to think of chapter titles or colorful chapter endings, all he could think about was Astrid.

How was he supposed to translate his desire to help her to people who'd never met her? She was…something else entirely. He'd never met a ghost who'd had such a hold over him before. He'd never felt such a need to help anyone else.

She was taking over his thoughts.

As if conjured by those ceaseless thoughts, a pale shimmer of the sunny air caught his attention. She didn't appear as vibrant in the direct sunlight, but he could make out the shimmer she caused, the slight shift of the light. She sat down in the chair beside him, the same chair he'd seen her in after he'd first moved in.

It felt like so long ago, but it hadn't been but a week.

She gestured to the notebook.

"I'm brainstorming," Hiccup said. He showed her what he'd done so far. "I'm trying to map out how I want this book to be, but…I'm not having much luck. I'm a little scatterbrained today." He didn't want to tell her it was because he kept thinking about her.

She gestured to the house.

"Yeah, it's about the house," Hiccup said. "I'm starting by introducing the house, your family, and you. I've got that part down. Then I'm going into how I found the place, my desire to buy it, and moving in. Then I'm going to go into all the paranormal activity I've had while living here, which will be different than the other houses I've done. I haven't lived in any of those. I've just stayed a while, usually in the evening houses, which Heather, my editor, thinks will give this book a new spin."

Astrid might have smiled. It was hard to tell in the light.

"So…I guess that would make three parts so far."

Astrid held up her hand, and Hiccup squinted; she held up four fingers.

"The fourth part will be the last one," Hiccup said. "It's when I talk about how I helped the spirit move on and end on a bittersweet happy note. It doesn't sound like a very long book, I know, but I'll add details to each part and have chapters within. I've gotten more streamlined at writing a book. My first attempt was a mess. Without Heather, it would have been a flop."

Fishlegs walked through the house. Hiccup paused; he didn't want to give Fishlegs any more thoughts about him losing his mind, although Fishlegs had seen him converse with plenty of spirits over the years. To see him talking yet again to himself shouldn't stir any worry in Fishlegs, but he didn't want to take the risk.

Fishlegs had walked to the bathroom – the toilet flush resounded through the open windows.

"I, uh, saw you again," Hiccup confessed to Astrid. "I don't know if you saw me or not. It was…in your kitchen. I don't know how old you were. Your mother was tending to a soldier's wounds."

Astrid nodded.

"I'd not read that in any of the historical texts," Hiccup said. "Did she help many soldiers?"

Astrid nodded again.

"The man had a boy with him, his son," Hiccup said, thinking of the boy. "You told him that if his father died, he could stay here with you and your mother to chop wood and pick up snakes."

Astrid seemed to laugh; her mouth opened and her chest shook. She closed her mouth and nodded.

"Did he…did his father live?"

A downcast expression came over her face. She shook her head.

"Oh," Hiccup said. "Then the boy stayed? What was his name…Eric? No, Eret."

She nodded. She pointed to the house.

"I guess he ended up chopping wood and clearing the snakes from the kitchen?"

She smiled and nodded, although not too enthused about it.

"Was he…alright? I mean, a stranger living in your house couldn't have been a comfort all the time."

She shrugged and leaned forward onto her knees, frowning, as if to say, it's complicated.

"Did he stay the duration of the war?"

She nodded.

"Did you father seem happy or dismayed that a boy was living in the house?"

Astrid didn't answer immediately, then she shook her head, and gestured to indicate that it might have been somewhere between both emotions.

"Did Eret return home?"

Astrid looked out over the yard and pointed toward town.

"He…stayed around here? Got a job in town?"

She nodded.

"Oh, well, I suppose that's not bad," Hiccup said. "I'm glad it all worked out for him. I'll add him into the book, if it's alright with you, he's another piece to the puzzle."

Astrid didn't seem to mind.

"Can you remember his last name?"

She shook her head.

"It's okay, the town wasn't very big in those days," Hiccup said. "If he paid taxes or owned property or committed a crime, he'll be in the courthouse records. I'll find him."

Noon rolled around. Fishlegs had updated the site and Hiccup had something of an outline for the book. They had a quick lunch (Fishlegs cooked) and then Fishlegs went into town, for what he didn't say. Hiccup ventured into the study and took a look at the site. It looked the same, only with a few minor changes for ease of access. He'd modified the toolbar a bit.

After checking it, Hiccup flopped his notebook down and ventured into the kitchen for his afternoon coffee. He reached pot, poured him a cup, and hadn't brought it to his lips when the world shifted; for a moment his stomach lurched – would the cup fall into the floor? However, by the laws of the trans-time crossings, the cup had somehow followed him. He still held it. He tasted the coffee; nothing about it suggested it had been touched by anything abnormal or strange.

Hiccup glanced about the Hofferson's kitchen while sipping his coffee. The kitchen still smelled like a hospital, but less…antiseptic. Mrs. Hofferson bent over a man in a union uniform that didn't look a day over seventeen. He'd gotten shot in left arm. Another man lay on another cot by the wall, asleep by the looks, with clean bandages around his head and his bare chest.

A thump from outside drew Hiccup's attention. Out back, the young Eret chopped wood. He seemed older than he had in the previous trans-time crossing. Of course, Hiccup didn't know much time passed between each one. By the look of the soldiers, the war was still going on, which meant it couldn't be after 1865. From the look of the trees and the countryside, winter was upon them. Snow still spotted the shadier places in the yard.

Hiccup was looking at Eret effortlessly chop wood, and he didn't hear the small footsteps approach until he glimpsed movement.

Astrid, carrying a water jug, stood frozen and stiff in the kitchen doorway. She looked older than she had before, a few years maybe; her face had widened and her hair had grown longer; she stood taller.

"You're back?" she whispered.

It took Hiccup a moment to realize she meant him.

Hiccup opened his mouth to speak, but the world around him shifted again. The suddenness startled him; he sloshed his coffee onto the floor and down his jeans.

"Shit," Hiccup spat at the mess.

The coffee quickly ran through the grout between the tiles. He set his mug in the sink and yanked the paper towels from the counter. As he dabbed, he glanced up at the doorway in case Astrid appeared. She didn't.

She had seen him.