Outside the police academy, Heather was waiting for her best friend to leave work for the day. As soon as she saw the blonde, a large smile crossed her face and they hugged.
"How were the recruits today?" she asked.
"They're improving nicely!"
"They know better than to not improve."
Astrid's brows furrowed slightly. "Hiccup said something similar."
"Because we know how scary you can be, but we love it," Heather said, laughing.
The smile on her face did not remain for long and Astrid noticed this. She put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"With everything that's going on, do you want to talk?"
"Kind of," the brunette admitted. She let out a sigh. "It feels like everything is so fresh now. Thinking about Dagur and my parents…it's like it happened just this morning instead of three years ago."
Astrid sadly regarded the other woman. "I won't pretend to understand how any of this feels, but I heard you weren't sure about speaking with Dagur. As much as I hate to say it, it might make you feel better at least a little bit to get to hear why it happened."
"I know. It probably would, but just the idea of seeing him disgusts me. He's just a nightmare right now to me–an awful one that somehow became real and destroyed my family, but he's that. If I meet him, then he'll be real. Then, it'll all be real. Maybe part of me is still thinking it isn't."
She suddenly looked at Astrid with a pleading expression the officer had never seen on her face. It broke her heart to see. Her friend looked so lost and felt the same.
"What would you do if you were me?"
Astrid frowned, deep in thought. "I'd probably try to kill him to be honest."
"Trust me, the thought has crossed my mind a lot. If anyone but Stoick was warden, I'd have tried to see if I could break in, but I wouldn't want it to come back and hurt him indirectly."
"Then, since killing is off the table…I guess I'd go talk with him. If for no other reason, I'd want to give him a piece of my mind. Let him know 'Hey, you didn't just kill two things. You killed two people who meant the world to me. They mattered and so do I. I can't take back what you did, but I can let whatever conscience you might have live with the knowledge that you destroyed three innocent lives that day.'"
Heather felt her throat becoming sore and wiped away a stray tear. "That would be pretty nice actually. I didn't really think about me talking during the visit. I've been so focused on getting answers that I didn't even consider telling him how I felt."
"You should. Let him know the monster he is. Even if it doesn't change a thing for him, I'm sure it'll do you a lot of good."
Taking a quiet breath, Heather's depressed look turned to a smile. "That might be enough of the heavy stuff for today. After all, there are still wedding plans that need to be made."
Looping their arms around each other, the friends left to go to choose flowers. While they did, Farid had just ended his day with the sessions. All the while, he had been thinking about the conversation he had that morning. So, it was true. Alvin had been doing illegal activity. He had suspected as much, but it was nice to know his hunch had been right. The only problem would be convincing the warden of this. Farid wondered if he would immediately say something or not.
"He might not believe us," he thought. "He could also tell Alvin, but Alvin already seems to think Dagur's been telling me about this. I doubt this would change much in his mind, so it could at least give the warden something to mull over."
The psychologist knocked on the door and heard Stoick's answer that he could enter.
"Hello again, Warden," he greeted.
"Hello, Doctor. How did the talks go today?"
"They went well." Farid glanced at the chair on the opposite side of the desk. "May I sit?"
"Of course."
The man did and put the notes he had taken on his lap. "I heard something interesting about Alvin."
Stoick raised a brow. "What was it?"
"It was that he has been working with inmates to sell drugs here. It makes sense, considering the state of some inmates I've seen. They behave in ways I'd expect someone to when they're going back and forth between being on drugs and going through withdrawal symptoms. It's dangerous. If nothing is stopped soon, someone could die."
Stoick stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Did Dagur tell you this?"
"He did. He said it was why Alvin has been so adamantly against him speaking with me." Farid paused. "Dagur also said that he didn't try to escape or kill the officers. Since they didn't want us to talk, they entered the cell with intentions of attacking him. It just backfired on them."
"Do you really think he didn't?"
"I do. If he escapes, he'll be on the run and doesn't want that; he wants to speak with Heather."
"And his reason for not going for the kill is the same?"
"I believe so, but he recognized that not wanting to kill them at all would have been better."
Stoick closed his eyes momentarily. "Then, it sounds like you are making progress. So much so that it would be a shame to discontinue your sessions."
Farid smiled. "I'm glad you agree, Warden." He rose to leave, then stopped. "There's one more inmate I wanted to speak with tomorrow at the end of the day if that's alright."
"What's his name?"
After the warden was told, he nodded. "Alright. I'll let Gobber know."
"Thank you. I hope you have a good rest of your night."
"You as well, Doctor."
Farid made his way to the car and as he did, his one client was deep in thought. Dagur was in the middle of going for a two-minute handstand. It was not like he had much else to be doing, but the quiet let his mind wander and it troubled him.
"If I do actually talk to Heather," he thought, "what'll I tell her? I killed those two and she doesn't even know why. I bet she hates me because of it. She might never stop hating me."
Sadly, the prisoner got back to his feet, grimacing slightly when he put some weight on his right leg. Dagur did not want to, but he also wanted it to get stronger and doubted that would happen if he kept babying the injury. Carefully, he started doing some leg lifts. It was a nice compromise that still got the muscles working without him necessarily having to rely on standing on the injured limb.
"I know I killed the only people you've ever thought of as your parents," he said, "but we can move on from that, right?" The young man grunted and facepalmed. "Because that'll definitely do the trick. Maybe we'll even go out for ice cream afterwards. I need something that makes sense even to someone who's not me. If someone did to me what I did to her, I'd want revenge. I don't know what that person could do which would make me not want it anymore."
A horrifying thought occurred to him as he sat straight up, a troubled look on his face. "What if it just makes everything worse? She could leave here even sadder and more upset than she entered and that'd be my fault too."
He began feeling very nervous and got up from the floor. Painfully, he began pacing.
"Ugh! This is so frustrating! This conversation might never even happen and if it does, it does. I'll just tell her the truth. There's nothing more to it than that. Whatever happens afterwards is what happens."
These ideas did not make the prisoner feel better, but he tried to stop stressing over the unknown. He still did, but at least it felt like a step in the right direction. The next day, a group of friends was gathered at Hiccup's home. Every so often, they would have a game night like they used to when they were kids. This time, Astrid and Heather were out doing night archery, neither being convinced it was an abnormal thing to do. That left the rest to try to battle it out with various challenges. As Snotlout and Tuffnut were wrestling for the fourth time (the latest one beginning over an argument of what a proper fire hydrant was like in charades), Hiccup felt himself becoming lost in thought. He was snapped back to reality when he heard the sound of ruffled pages. Behind him, a two-headed goat was fighting with itself over which head would get to eat the paper.
"Barf, Belch, no!" Hiccup called out, going to get the pages from the animal.
The heads joined forces long enough to tug at the paper against him, but they stopped when Toothless stalked over to them. When the goat scurried off, Hiccup frowned at the wet piece of paper which once had a sketch of an item he was planning on making so that he could feed the exotic animals simultaneously. He let out a groan as it then went to start chewing on the sofa.
"Ruff, Tuff, can you keep Barf and Belch from eating up my house?" the young man requested, exasperated.
Tuffnut barely heard him, but Ruffnut shrugged. "We can't put a leash on brilliance!"
Hiccup just shook his head and the twin's brother finally started to pay attention.
"Eating is how they learn about the world, Hiccup. Do you really want to limit their knowledge?"
"If it means having some furniture left, yes."
Instinctively, Fishlegs held onto Meatlug tighter, keeping an eye on the goat.
"You really should have let Hiccup train them longer," he mentioned.
Bored with the wrestling, Tuffnut got up and shook his head. "Nope. They know enough. Couldn't risk you breaking spirits."
"Their spirits wouldn't be broken. Besides, even Hookfang isn't this rambunctious."
Snotlout scoffed. "Says you. He's on good behavior around here."
Offended, the Doberman growled at his owner. The dark-haired man gestured towards him.
"See what I'm talking about?"
The friends just laughed and a small smirk threatened to appear on Snotlout's face as well. Despite the happiness, Hiccup still felt troubled and Fishlegs quickly noticed this.
"What's going on?" he asked. "You've been pretty quiet for most of the night. Not even Ruff calling checkmate in Monopoly got a reaction out of you."
The taller man just frowned slightly. "I don't want to mess up everyone's fun."
"You can tell us," the blond insisted.
After a pause, Hiccup spoke again. "I really think there's more to Dagur's arrest than everyone thinks."
Ruff and Tuff looked at him as though he had said the sun was bright.
"That's what we've been telling everyone!" Tuff exclaimed. "Like always, it takes the Nuts to figure out what's wrong."
Fishlegs got quiet for a moment. "Hiccup, he killed Heather's parents."
"I didn't say that I think he's innocent of everything. I do think he killed them, but…Heather has a chance to find out why now at least. Maybe that'll shine some more light on things."
"Who knows? Maybe they were drug lords," Ruff offered.
"Ooh, or murderers," Tuff said, eyes widening. "Maybe they killed old Ossie, and Dagur killing them was about revenge."
The two kept listing off possibilities, receiving a glare from Fishlegs and not caring. After a bit, Snotlout, who had been silent the entire time, spoke.
"Do you really think he might not just be some dangerous criminal?" he asked.
"I don't know," Hiccup answered honestly. "I do think he's dangerous, but…there was always something which seemed wrong about the case. I guess I've never forgotten about that and now with Farid talking with him, it seems like it's only causing me to ask more questions. Dad told me about an escape attempt, but even he thinks it didn't really happen that way."
The twins looked pensive.
"There was a supposed escape attempt?" Tuff asked.
"Yeah, it was recent. Alvin wound up having to shoot him, but he's okay."
The siblings turned to each other and began whispering. Hiccup tried to hear what they were saying, but he could not. Instead, he heard the sound of the door opening. Astrid and Heather had just returned. They immediately noticed the odd silence when they did. The blonde crossed her arms.
"Okay, what did we just step into?"
"Hm? Nothing special," Hiccup said with a nervous grin.
"Nothing special?" Ruff echoed in disbelief.
"I'd beg to differ!" Tuff chimed in.
Hiccup sighed and Astrid frowned, then looked at Heather with concern in her eyes. The dark-haired woman just regarded the group calmly.
"Look, guys, if you want to talk about Dagur, you can," she said. "I don't want to make everyone feel like they have to walk on eggshells around me."
"It's not that," Hiccup assured her. "We just don't want to make anything weird for you."
"Things are going to be weird at least until all this ends. Maybe afterwards too. I'd just appreciate you guys being honest with me. Do any of you think he's guilty of killing my parents?"
"Yes," came the reply in unison.
"What about killing his father?"
This was where the hesitation came in. The twins emphatically disagreed, Fishlegs looked unsure, and Snotlout just kept his eyes away from Heather's.
"I'm not sure," Hiccup said. "Part of me actually doesn't."
Heather did not know how to respond to that and neither did the others. For the friends, it seemed the games had ended that night. As the young men and women dealt with their unanswered questions and uncertain feelings, Farid was about to have his last session of the day. It was one he had looked forward to due to his curiosity which had been piqued so long ago. He waited with his list of questions even though he knew he had them all memorized. After a couple of minutes had passed, Gobber opened the door and a man limped inside, sneering. His expression matched that of the guard's. The blond appeared to be snarling at the inmate (a first for what Farid had seen from him).
"Thank you, Gobber," he said with a nod of his head.
When the prisoner sat down, Gobber left but not without first frowning again at the new client. Once the door closed again, the man's mouth curved into a grin.
"Heard about you, Doc. Guess I'm on the redemption list now? You even speak to guys like me?"
"Anyone can be on that list."
"I'm not interested in change."
With crossed arms, the other individual got quiet. Farid frowned a bit, deciding there was no reason not to since he would not have been seen either way.
"That's fine as well. I'm interested in asking you some questions. Could we talk about those?"
"Depends on the questions."
"They're about Dagur."
Suddenly, the inmate's posture changed. He tensed before chuckling and bit before relaxing again.
"Sure, why not? I could talk about Dainty all day long."