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A/N: This oneshot inspired by the stillbirth ask I received, and by Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month.
Purple lips and tiny hands, pale and cold, were lifeless as Hiccup laid her down in the cradle he had made. She did not grasp her father’s finger. She did not root for sustenance. Instead, she lie still as a doll and every bit as beautiful. Scenes of dragons and Norsemen, cohabitating amicably, were interwoven with intricate knotwork, carved into the wood the held her now. Hiccup had paid special attention to every detail, capturing a former golden age of peace and prosperity his little one may never know. He would tell the stories, talk of his father and his dragon until his child felt as though they were old friends; that Toothless and Stoick were not really gone for good, but on a distant journey somewhere they could not be followed. Only, for a time. Berk’s history would carry him or her to splendid dreams, fashioned by a loving hand: a perfect cradle for a perfect child. And that child was a daughter: the firstborn of Hiccup and Astrid. Berk’s pride and joy.
She was loosely swaddled in linen, gently placed on a bed of the softest rabbit fur. Hiccup was careful; he didn’t want to cause her harm. Absurd to think that he could, but it was a father’s compulsion. She didn’t stir. She didn’t cry. No movement at all; not the fluttering of eyelids nor the rise and fall of a tiny belly, mesmerizing to watch for any new parent. Hiccup did not have that luxury. He wished he could breathe for her, but the air was stagnant in his own lungs. At first glance, she may have been sleeping—but one could not miss the blue fingernails and dusky skin. He’d never feel that tiny hand clutching him for comfort and reassurance. She would never know her daddy was near.
Hiccup felt numb—as cold inside as she was to the touch. She. Well, he supposed Ruffnut could gloat now though the odds had always been fifty-fifty. What was her name to be? That was his responsibility—but he couldn’t decide it then. Was it even appropriate anymore? Names were for the babies who lived. He was transfixed by her face, silently beseeching those eyes to open. Maybe then, he could have the closure he needed to say a simultaneous hello and goodbye. But he wasn’t entirely sure he was strong enough either way. He didn’t even know the color of her eyes.
Gobber sniffed from the corner of the room, in the broadest shadow trying to make himself invisible. Hiccup appreciated the consideration, but the reality of the situation was plain and unchanging. He glanced down at his hands, squeezing the side of the cradle, white-knuckle. Caked on his hands was a heartbreaking mixture of Astrid’s blood, vernix, and all manner of birth fluids—whatever they were comprised of. Hiccup didn’t care. He could only imagine how hard it might be to scrub every trace from his nail beds. And did he want to?
“How’s Astrid?” Gobber spoke up; while his voice was soft, it cut through the heavy silence like a crack of thunder. Even the fire in the hearth seemed to recoil.
Hiccup rocked the cradle, tilting his daughter closer to the dancing flame. She’d appreciate the warmth. She might pink up in the soft light. One might just be fooled…
“She’s resting,” Hiccup replied. His voice did not sound like his own: a cheap imitation, squeezed in a vice. “She didn’t want to see. Not yet. My mother, her mother—they’re with her.”
“Ah.”
The bench creaked as Gobber shifted to his feet. He hobbled forward with quiet, mismatched steps, as to not disturb the resting baby—no, the baby at rest.
From the other room, a renewed chorus of wails shook Hiccup’s bones. It was Astrid, but not Astrid. His lip quivered and his stomach lurched. He hadn’t yet cried; a cauldron just starting to boil. Grief was starting to sift up through the shock and protective disbelief. His numb shield was crumbling faster than he could hold it together, his wife’s bereaved howls leaving him on the brink. He looked over the edge into a dark chasm that frightened him; that called to him with all the whispers of a lost lifetime of opportunities; future memories dead upon arrival.
“Was this my fault?” he asked Gobber, voice cracked. How did one speak? How was he even making his mouth move? He was not in himself, but a puppet of muscle memory.
“No,” Gobber replied in earnest, gripping his shoulder bracingly. “Why would it—?”
“Complacency,” he blurted out. “Was I—were we—too complacent?” Hiccup’s mind was reeling. His heart began to race, trying to outpace the anguish. “Were…were the prayers wrong?” He eyes scanned the room. “Did we leave something knotted or tied? Her mother said she’d never seen a cord so knotted—”
Gobber was suddenly in his face with the kind of discomforting closeness that grounded Hiccup to the present, pulling him from the realm of what-if.
“There is no sense to this, Hiccup. It just is. Stop looking for reason where there is none.”
Hiccup’s breaths had turned to shallow rattles. He pursed his lips tightly to keep them from quivering. He imagined they blanched, as colorless as his daughter’s skin. It grew harder to glance at her face. Regardless of unknown eye color, she looked like Astrid.
“She’s so small,” Hiccup croaked. And she was broken. Gone. He couldn’t fix it, and the weight of his helplessness was all but debilitating.
“She’s in your father’s care now,” Gobber said, and his own resolve wavered.
Hiccup was taken aback. His grief was displaced by a moment’s bemusement. “How would a baby find its way to Valhalla?”
Gobber straightened up, swallowing the drainage in the back of his throat. His eyes glistened, and he spoke with confidence, “Because Stoick, himself, would lead the fallen warriors and kings to retrieve her.”
Hiccup could picture it: large, beaming Stoick, proudly showing off a newborn among all the gods and kings of Valhalla. Shrill cries rang out in a gilded mead hall until a deep and gentle voice lulled the baby to sleep. A drink in one hand, small bundle in the other. If anyone would challenge Hel for a grandchild, it was his father. How appropriate; how typical. It seemed as though Stoick would be the one telling all the stories now.
Pure, unfiltered heartache, sharp and poisonous. Hiccup let out a hollow laugh—one that would’ve been mirthful if there was even a spark of life left to ignite his humor. It became a sob, and then another. He let out the cries of a wounded animal, calling out for mercy; for suffering’s end. Tears streamed down his face, hidden behind his trembling hands as he collapsed into Gobber, who held him up with one good hand and all of his heartfelt, “There, there. I’ve got you, now.”
Hiccup clung to Gobber because no one else would do. He was a child without a father, and a father without a child; and each tear that fell substituted an inadequate word, for there were none strong enough for this.