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The ringing must have went on for a while. Hiccup swore it sounded desperate to reach him.
He blearily began to try to find it, clumsily running his hand over his nightstand. As he got his phone, and flipped it open (it was a hand me down), he mumbled out a slurred, “Yeah?”
It was 2 AM. He could see it in red numbers on the alarm clock. He was annoyed for a moment, until he heard crying on the other end.
“Hiccup?” It was Rapunzel. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry to call you in the middle of the night, but I don’t know who else to call, and I—I don’t have anyone else, I’m sorry—“
“Punzy, it’s okay,” he said gently, coming awake at once. He sat up, throwing the covers off of himself. “Tell me what’s going in.” Internally, he was panicking. What if Rapunzel was dying? What if she had hurt herself? What if what had happened was too horrible to think about?
“I… You see, oh god…” Rapunzel sounded like she was going to break down crying again. “My mom called me a strumpet for…for dating you. She said I was going to get pregnant and become a single mother who let her baby starve, and she said I was horrible, and that she was going to ground me so I couldn’t see you.”
“Yeah, okay. What else?” Hiccup said, trying to keep levelheaded even at the accusations.
“And, and… She was saying all these horrible things, and I… I kind of got up and just left. I left the house, Hiccup. I’m a runaway.” She sniffled at the end, as though this was the most horrible thing she had ever done.
It probably was. Hiccup got up and started pulling on his pants, holding his phone against his ear with his shoulder. “Where are you? I’m going to come get you. I’ll bring Toothless, okay? You like Toothless.”
Toothless was his pit bull. Rapunzel adored the loveable dog.
“I’m, I’m at the bus stop. Right outside Lincoln street. Oh god, I’m so sorry, Hiccup…” Rapunzel broke into fresh tears, and Hiccup’s heart clenched. He hated to hear her this way.
“I’m going to hang up now; be safe, and I’ll be there in about ten minutes, okay?” he said, nudging Toothless awake with his foot.
The dog followed him.
“Okay. Okay, I will.”
“I love you, okay?” he said, walking out the front door and heading for his father’s pickup truck.
“Okay, I love you too.” And she hung up, as if knowing he was about to start the car.
It took him about an even ten minutes to get there. When he did, he saw Rapunzel sitting in the bus stop alone, bare footed and in a night gown.
He flashed his brights to get her attention, and she looked up in shock. When she saw it was him, she rushed forward and climbed into the cab of the truck.
“Hey,” he said softly, locking the doors after she got in.
“Hey,” she said softer, wrapping her arms around her elbows.
Hiccup drove towards home. For a moment, they were silent, until he said, “Running away doesn’t make you bad.”
“It does! She’s only ever been good to me,” Rapunzel sniffled, drawing her knees up to her chest.
Hiccup sighed, saying, “She hasn’t been. Rapunzel, she’s manipulative. She tries to make you do what she wants no matter what’s good for you, and she’s always ready to take you down a peg.”
“Hiccup, that’s not fair. She had to give up being a model for me,” Rapunzel said, tucking her very long braid into her lap.
“She’s a witch! Remember how she tried to homeschool you, completely cut off from everyone else, until you failed your testing and they had to force her to let you go to school?” Hiccup was not in the mood to stand up for Rapunzel’s mother, Mrs. Gothel. As far as he was concerned, the woman was abusive.
Rapunzel mumbled, “Homeschooling isn’t bad or anything… I kind of liked it.”
“But you were so lonely, and she didn’t even care. She didn’t even care that you weren’t learning anymore!” Hiccup stopped too abruptly at the next light.
Rapunzel was quiet. She always tried to defend her mother, even though she had a clear history of abuse. She toyed with her braid, saying softly, “Well, she’s my mother. I love her.”
Hiccup couldn’t reply to that. Instead, he drove in silence, wishing there was something he could say to convince Rapunzel that her mother simply didn’t have her best interests at heart.
Finally, he came up with small talk. “I hope you don’t mind the couch; it’s a foldout bed. It’s got a nice enough mattress.”
“Anything’s fine,” Rapunzel replied, not looking at him.
“I mean, I’d give you my bed, but it’s kind of high time I, um, washed the sheets and stuff… Plus, I think you’ll like the bigger bed better.” He wasn’t sure how this was helping, but he wished they could just make things clear for once.
“Thanks, Hiccup,” Rapunzel says, still not looking anywhere but straight ahead.
When they got home, Hiccup helped her get set up, and put her to bed.
As he watched her settle in under the blankets, he said a soft good night, and wished, desperately wished, she would see her mother for what she truly was.