A Oneshot that I've had sitting around for a long time - and I couldn't stop tweaking it! Finally it got to the stage where I thought it was just about acceptable to put up here.

Warning - MAJOR fluff! Perhaps a little unrealistic, but hey, I had fun writing it... =P

Hiccup woke suddenly, bathed in clammy sweat and hyperventilating. The pain from his leg was so cataclysmic it surpassed any notion of it being limited to a specific place in his body - Hiccup felt like the whole of him was being torn to pieces. Gasping for air, he sat up and cursed through gritted teeth. He hated this. Why was he so weak? It had been a month since he'd woken from his injury, and that had been a month after he'd killed the Red Death, and if anything, the pain was only getting worse.

He kept himself to himself these days. He'd spent long, torturous years yearning, pleading with the gods for Astrid's attention, and now that he seemed, by some fluke, to command it to some degree - though she was still more like a dragoness than she'd ever have admitted to, wild and unpredictable - he found all he wanted was to withdraw into himself. It held no satisfaction for him - it felt like a defence mechanism. If nobody could get to him, nobody could hurt him.

In his more lucid moments he knew this was his mind being unprepared to accept he was no longer the butt of everyone's jokes, and being unprepared to stop defending his self esteem by shutting everyone else out. He couldn't shake the feeling that this newfound adulation was transitory - in his cynicism, he assumed that soon enough, he'd be back to where he was before.

So he drew himself away from those around him, in subtle ways that nonetheless became more obvious as they multiplied. He didn't eat with the rest of the tribe. He'd be gone hours at a time and never tell anyone where he was going, only returning in the dead of night when he was sure he could slip back unaccosted.

And that made it difficult when his leg really began to worry him.

Odin, it was painful.

It screamed its sadistic scream of white hot wrenching agony at him every night, begging for attention, telling him something was wrong, badly wrong. But as Hiccup himself had observed, Vikings had stubbornness issues, and he was unwilling to seek help.

He would not be weak. Not this time. He wouldn't let himself become vulnerable like that, not again. He remembered, with bitterness and cold, detached anger, what had happened before, when he'd been vulnerable.

So he gritted his teeth every night and prepared for the hurt, alone. And every night, it grew worse.

Tonight, it was all he could do not to reach for the nearest vaguely sharp object and hack the rest of his leg off in a desperate attempt to remove whatever Thorforsaken thing had gotten into his leg. Or stump.

He felt himself grow lightheaded, and his peripheral vision faded, leaving him seeing only straight ahead, and even that was blurry and flickered with spots that flitted across his vision.

He gave in to the pain and screamed.

It shook the whole village. An anguish-filled, incoherent, ragged and tortured cry that thundered through the still night air like the roars of the dragons once had.

Instantaneously, Astrid Hofferson was awake.

Her eyes snapped open. She knew exactly what that scream meant. She'd heard it before from battle-wounded men who were all but boarding the ship to Valhalla. It was the cry of someone losing their grip on reality through sheer sensory overload from pain.

And given recent events, Astrid realised with a jolt there was only one person on the whole island who could possibly have made it.

She dressed as quickly as she could, and dashed out of her room. Upon which she ran headlong into her groggy-eyed mother.

"Dear Gods Astrid, what was that noise?"

She replied with one word.

"Hiccup"

Her mother's eyes widened in realization.

Then they heard it again. Identical to the first, save it was longer, and Astrid could have sworn it ended in an anguished whimper.

Not prepared to wait any longer, Astrid sprinted down the stairs and out of her door.

Around her, light was appearing in people's windows and here and there heads poked out of those same windows, looking perplexed and nervous.

She spotted Snotlout peering round his front door.

"Snotlout!"

"Astrid, what was that?"

"Hiccup - it must've been. Come on, I'm gonna need your help".

Normally Snotlout would have puffed his chest out at this and begun some pompous speech about the womenfolk helping the men and not the other way round. However, Astrid could've sworn she saw concern in Snotlout's eyes. She certainly saw steadfastness. It seemed all Vikings had within them an inherent perception of when was a bad moment to start messing around and wasting time. All except Hiccup, obviously, but that, Astrid had long since decided, was one of the many things that led her towards her feelings for him.

She snapped back to reality, as she heard the unmistakable panicked roar of Toothless coming from behind her, in Hiccup's house. Her head snapped round to face it. Clearly, the dragon had found Hiccup and didn't like what he saw. And Toothless knew the boy better than anyone.

A knot of fear coiled in Astrid's stomach. This was serious.

She turned to Snotlout. "Cancel that, go get the healer and bring him to Hiccup's house. Quickly" she instructed, an edge in her voice.

Snotlout nodded tersely and ran back down the hill, whilst Astrid headed in the opposite direction, charging towards Hiccup's house, covering the ground as fast as she could.

She burst through the house's front door and ran upstairs. She could hear Toothless' incessant frightened screeching, and behind that, the tense, frantic moaning of someone in an awful lot of pain.

She slammed the door open and in 2 strides, was at Hiccup's bedside.

He was lying on his back, his entire body shaking and quivering like a coiled spring. Every muscle was straining, his knuckles white and his arms tense from gripping the wooden frame of the bed like a vice. His face was contorted into a silent scream to match the very much audible ones she'd heard him make moments ago. His eyes were clenched tight shut and he breathed in ragged, irregular gasps from behind gritted teeth. He alternately whimpered, moaned and screamed, and his entire body was slick with sweat. He was tangled in a blanket that obscured what remained of his left leg from view. Gently, fearing what she might find, she prised the blanket away from his torso and legs.

She'd been right to be afraid.

The stump was swollen irregularly and was weeping straw-coloured fluid from its base. The skin around the wound was mottled and blotchy, alternately vivid red and utterly pale. The entire wound was open and some of the flesh was blackened and cauterised, whilst other parts were red raw and looked angry and dangerous.

Astrid was a strong one, she prided herself on it. But it was all she could do at that moment to stop herself retching. How had he been living with this? This sort of infection - for that was clearly what it was - did not arise in a single night. Why hadn't he told anyone?

She prised his hand away from the bedframe and took it in her own. He gripped it so tightly Astrid felt like her knuckles were about to give way. Despite herself, she winced. It was a strong grip.

She leant over him and shouted "Hiccup! Hiccup, wake up!".

"S-Strid?" he barely managed to get out. "S'that y-you?".

"Shh, calm down now, its ok -"

His back arched and he screamed again as a new wave of pain washed over him.

Astrid grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him back towards the bed, fighting to calm him down.

"S-Strid, m'fine.."

She could scarcely believe her ears.

"You are not fine, Hiccup" she admonished, "so stop trying to hide it. The healer's on her way, he'll get rid of the pain-"

At that, the door to Hiccup's room burst open and a concerned-looking Friedrich Sigurdsson, the village healer, hurried in, followed closely by an equally concerned-looking Snotlout.

"We heard him screaming on our way up the hill" he explained to Astrid.

"Stand aside, please" the healer directed the two of them, and they did so immediately. Hiccup was no longer convulsing with pain but his face was still contorted with it, and Astrid had to prise her hand away from his, though it pained her to do so.

The healer immediately reached for his pocket and brought out a copious amount of what Astrid knew to be the standard painkilling herb, Dewflower. The innocence of the name was misleading at best - the stuff had been used in the capture of the dragons they had used for training, back in the days when dragons had still been the enemy. It was essentially a tranquiliser, and one slug of it could knock a person out for 10 straight hours. The amount the healer had with him could just about have felled the Red Death, there was so much of it. Astrid was alarmed - clearly the Healer was not underestimating the amount of pain there was to get rid of.

Astrid's breath caught in her throat as she realised that it had only been a month since Hiccup had woken up after his fight with the Red Death. Although he'd been unconscious for a month before that, it still seemed like it had been so much longer. Perhaps her brain simply refused to believe that their entire society could have been so upended in such a short space of time.

She realised, with a horrible pang of guilt, that during that entire time it hadn't even occurred to anyone, including herself, just what Hiccup might be going though, both mentally and physically, with dealing with his injury and his sudden hero-status. She knew he still saw himself as the failure, the poor excuse for a viking that they'd made him believe that he was. Astrid shuddered at the memory. How they'd belittled him, never understanding that the fact he was different was what would ultimately make him a greater person than any of them. Not for the first time, Astrid's heart was wrenched to and fro with guilt over what they'd made him think he was. Because of them, he was still dealing with it today.

She realised with a start that perhaps that was why he'd not told anyone of the pain he'd been suffering. While his guardedness against appearing vulnerable had been infuriating in the past month, she knew full well it was her own fault, along with the other teens, that it was there in the first place.

Snotlout by this time had left on Firewyrm, his Monstrous Nightmare, to try to get a message to Stoick, who was on a hunting trip on the northern part of the island and was reachable only by dragon. Hiccup had gradually begun to quieten, and Astrid turned to see the Healer meet her gaze with solemn eyes.

"He'll be out for probably a day, but he'll be in a lot of pain when he wakes up. I'm going to need to do something more permanent about this. He's in trouble with that wound".

Astrid's eyes widened, but Friedrich continued regardless.

"He'll be confused and disorientated when he wakes up. He'll need some frame of reference. You need to be with him, Astrid". He placed his hand on her forearm. "I'm sorry, I know this is difficult for you too. I just don't understand why he let it get this bad without telling any of us". He shook his head slightly in bemusement, and left.

Astrid had a horrible feeling she knew exactly why Hiccup had kept it to himself.

Astrid spent that day at Hiccup's bedside, wracked by feelings of guilt and concern that, two months previous, would have been alien to her. She sat silent and steadfast, but inside she was a cauldron of uncertainty.

She loved Hiccup, more than she'd initially dared admit to herself, but she'd never been able to tell him. She'd never felt capable. The realization had dawned on her over the past two months, but the kiss she'd given Hiccup when he'd woken had been more out of relief and exhilaration that they were both still alive, and they both knew it didn't really mean much.

This, though...

Astrid was astonished that a feeling she'd never felt before could feel so familiar.

Love.

It couldn't be anything else, she was sure of this now. But even during the time she had felt it strengthen and blossom within her, she'd watched Hiccup grow more and more distant with each passing day.

She worried about him. He'd been a changed person since he'd woken from his coma, and not in a good way. Whereas previously he was the bumbling idiot, and then, once she'd seen past that misconception, the caring, gentle but steely young man who was willing to go against his entire tribe for what he believed, now he was merely a whisper on the breeze, a figure disappearing rapidly over the peak of some far-off hill. He was seldom to be seen in the village, and when he was, it was for fleeting moments. Occasionally she would catch glimpses of a black blur riding proud into the midday sun - something every villager knew the meaning of nowadays - but always too late to try to call him back to land, and when she saw that, she knew he'd be gone well into the small hours of the next morning. Once, out of frustration, she'd stayed up late into the night just to see when he returned. The sun's rays were peering over the horizon by the time she'd heard the soft whoomph that she knew to mean Toothless had just landed nearby. She'd rushed towards where she'd thought the noise had come from, but there was nothing to be seen when she'd got there save the merest flicker of a black, single-finned tail disappearing fluidly behind a nearby building.

It was much the same story at social events. Though Hiccup had to show himself at these - seeing as he was now proclaimed as the hero of Berk, something he appeared to be distinctly uncomfortable with when toasts were made in his honour, and there were a lot of these - he would stay only for as long as was necessary, meeting the important people he was supposed to, and then vanishing so quickly Astrid was left clueless even as to which door he'd made good his escape out of, let alone where he might have gone to.

Only once in that month had Astrid even talked with him, after their initial conversation - if a slug to the arm followed by a kiss could be called that - and that had been when she'd caught him unawares at the forge. She'd been about to open her mouth and cheerily greet him, when she'd noticed what he was doing, and the words had died on her lips. He was prising his prosthetic away from his leg, and he was clearly in pain, wincing as he did so. Astrid had watched in surprise and concern from a distance as he set the metal leg down on a nearby surface and began to unwrap his bandages. She'd gasped at the injury, despite herself - it looked brutal and horrific, and of all the people in the world, she couldn't think of someone who deserved it less.

Astrid was not normally predisposed to anger at the Gods, but she'd felt it then. Hadn't he been through enough, at their own hands and others? Here was a boy who had been ostracized from the moment he'd been born, by everyone he knew and everyone around him. Here was a boy who'd only ever wanted to fit in, and who had been rejected for it. Here was a boy who'd found friendship in the most unlikely form, only to have it coldly taken away from him, to be branded a traitor, and, if the rumours and whispers were true, to be disowned by his own father. Here was a boy, of fifteen short and tortured years, who despite all that had gone before, had put himself in the path of the single most fearsome creature any of them had ever seen, knowing full well he was likely to die, and had singlehandedly brought it down - killed it - in order to save the lives of the very people who'd made his life so miserable.

Here was a boy who'd gone through Hel, come out the other side, and become a man. And yet the Gods had still burdened him with as awful a wound as the loss of a leg. At his age, it was lucky he'd survived it at all.

She'd waited until he had reattached his prosthetic and then, summoning all her acting skill, had sauntered in, pretending to have only just arrived.

"Hey Hiccup, how're you getting on in here?" she'd asked, trying to sound bright and cheerful.

"Fine" he mumbled.

"How's your leg?"

"Fine, thanks."

She sighed, abandoning the pretence.

"Hiccup, are you alright?"

He paused, then sighed himself.

"No" he admitted quietly, sounding bitter and frustrated.

Instantly she'd been at his side, kneeling down and looking into his eyes with concern.

"What is it?"

"It never stops hurting, Astrid". He'd used her name, but he seemed not to be addressing anybody in particular, speaking instead to the piece of empty air directly in front of him. He turned his head away and gazed absently into the middle distance. "Even when I'm asleep it hurts. And I can't make it stop". With those last four words, he'd slammed his fist down on the table, pounding out a rhythm. She could sense the pent-up anger.

He sighed. "I'll be alright, Astrid". He sounded deflated. This wasn't like him. "Just, please ..." - he paused, searching for the right words - "I have to deal with this on my own".

"No you don't".

He looked back at her in surprise.

"Nobody's asking you to be all noble and valiant here, Hiccup. None of us want to see you suffer".

"Not any more, you don't" he muttered, bitterness saturating his voice.

Astrid had been expecting something like this to come to the surface. Doubtless Hiccup was hurt and angry at the treatment they'd given him over the years. She knew he needed time to get it out of his system.

She let the remark slide.

"If you need anything, Hiccup, come find me. Please?"

Hiccup nodded slowly, uncertainly.

After a long pause, she'd slowly stood up, and strolled out of the forge. She was fully aware that despite her words, Hiccup was going to continue trying to hide the extent of his suffering from them. She had no intention of letting him go through it on his own, however. Though she knew it would anger him if she were to constantly check up on him, she watched him from a distance, keeping an eye on him, and over time she began to learn to recognise the signs he was in trouble.

That was surely what had led her to recognise Hiccup's screams the night before, even from halfway across the village.

It was now mid afternoon, though to look at the sky, you wouldn't have known. The winter darkness had fallen thick and fast and the village was cloaked in suffocating blackness. It would not grow light again for weeks, and it had been glorious high summer when Hiccup had first met Toothless. How time flew by.

Astrid had held her vigil by Hiccup's bedside, lost in thought and contemplation. However, shortly before midnight that night, she was snapped out of her reverie by the softest of groans escaping Hiccup's slightly parted lips. He was beginning to wake up, and Astrid knew it wouldn't be pleasant for him - the Healer had warned her Hiccup would be in a lot of pain. In readiness, she took his hand gently into her own, and inwardly braced herself.

Sure enough, Hiccup's first waking scream shook the rafters and immediately brought Toothless crashing haphazardly through the bedroom door, looking more concerned than she'd ever seen the dragon. Hiccup's grip tightened suddenly around Astrid's hand and she squeezed back, to let him know she was there. Toothless keened softly, and gently nuzzled Hiccup's forehead. He seemed to be trying to convey to Hiccup the exact same thing that Astrid was.

We're here for you.

To Astrid's immeasurable relief, Hiccup seemed to be coping. His breaths were short and sharp and he was sweating, but he wasn't screaming. After the initial shock of waking up to the pain of his wound, he'd calmed down. Enough to open his eyes, and gaze straight into Toothless' own.

"Hey bud" he barely managed to whisper.

Toothless responded by nudging Hiccup tenderly with his brow and warbling slightly. Astrid understood Hiccup's preoccupation - Toothless was his first and best friend, the one who'd cared for him even as everyone else had dismissed him. Even now, months after the event, she was perpetually awestruck at how inseparable the two of them were. The whole village had learnt how to train, befriend and live with dragons by now, but none of them could ever hope to get close to what Hiccup and Toothless had. If they had not been different species, Astrid would have suspected them of being twins separated at birth.

They were very, very close.

Hiccup seemed to notice at this point that the hand which he wasn't using to absentmindedly scratch a softly purring Toothless behind the ear was being held onto by something. He turned his head to the left, and as he caught sight of Astrid and the fact that it was her holding his left hand, his eyes widened in surprise.

"A-Astrid?". He sounded utterly perplexed.

"Hello, you" Astrid responded in a soft voice. She hadn't let on to anyone how concerned she truly was for him. Nobody save herself knew of the full extent of her feelings for Hiccup - even Hiccup only had the barest inkling there might be something there, and most of the time he believed he was deluding himself.

"Wh-What...what are you doing here?" he blurted out abruptly, before checking himself. "Sorry, that was out of line... I just didn't expect you".

Astrid merely smiled. Hiccup was the only person she knew of whose first thought, upon waking up into extreme pain after a full day of fitful unconsciousness, would be not hurting someone else's feelings.

"You scared me, Hiccup. Do you remember me coming to you last night when you were screaming in pain?".

Hiccup frowned.

"I don't remember last night at all". He smiled shyly. "But by the sound of what you've just said I was being a right pain in the -"

"You were worrying me and poor Toothless to death, is what you were doing" Astrid interjected, punching him lightly, playfully, on the shoulder. Toothless snorted in agreement.

Hiccup paused.

"Sorry about that".

All the while, Astrid had been inching her chair closer to the side of the bed. She hadn't even realised she'd been doing it, and only noticed when, after a moment, Hiccup asked,

"What's wrong?"

He fixed her with a curious look, one that made her insides churn. She was not used to this kind of uncertainty. She'd been brought up to know exactly what to do, when, and in whatever situation. Of course, this sort of behaviour required a simplicity and bloodymindedness that, Astrid now realised, did not well prepare you for the complex, intricate, subtle and yet highly emotionally charged process of falling in love with someone, and then trying to tell them.

She sighed inwardly.

To Hel and back with it, she thought, this shouldn't be as difficult as it is.

And with that, she leaned in and, ever so slowly, ever so softly, pressed her lips against his, drawing him into a long and gentle kiss.

It was the most tender contact Astrid had ever had with another person. It lingered for what seemed like a beautiful eternity to both of them, and Astrid slowly brought her free arm up to rest lying along Hiccup's shoulder. In the fog of her bliss, she barely heard the small, affectionate noises Toothless was making. They were too wrapped up in their newfound romance.

After a very long time indeed, Astrid finally drew back. They merely gazed into each others' eyes for a while, until Hiccup finally broke that most comfortable of silences.

"Why did you do that?" he asked dreamily, the memories and sensations of the kiss still whispering to him, clinging on long after the event.

Astrid smiled. Now, it all seemed so straightforward - she was, all of a sudden, ready - so ready - to tell him what she really felt.

"Because I love you, Hiccup. Really, I do".

Hiccup's eyes grew wide and he stared at her anew for a long moment, before asking, in a very quiet voice, "Really?"

Astrid smiled slightly. "Really."

For a moment, all was still, and Hiccup merely carried right on staring. Then, his face cracked into a wonderful smile, and Astrid responded in kind, beaming right back at him, her eyes welling up with tears of joy. She slowly wrapped her arms around his shoulders and drew him close to herself, holding him for all the world like they were back on Dragon Island and Hiccup was fighting for his life. Then, though, she had feared for his life, and for them all.

Now, she feared for nothing. But, as always, it was Hiccup who added the final, beautiful touch.

"You know what else?" he mumbled, still holding Astrid tightly. She looked him in the eyes inquisitively, silently encouraging him. Hiccup smiled.

"My leg isn't hurting any more".

D'awww, aren't they sweet? XD

Tis quite a long oneshot I grant you, but I hope it's coherent enough to be at least readable!

As always, reviews VERY MUCH appreciated...would love to hear what you guys think!