a/n: Just another story of a character lying awake, thinking about another character, and trying to sort out their emotions. If you couldn't already tell, I love this type of story. I am back to writing fanfics after a ten year hiatus and I am trying to upload frequently. Any and all feedback/reviews are extra appreciated. thank you!

Lying Awake

Astrid rolled onto her stomach in her bed. She sighed and huffed and tried, yet failed, to get comfortable in her bed furs. She light shift dress she wore to bed was twisted around her legs.

With a sigh, Astrid glanced out the window and saw the moon high in the sky, a glowing sliver in the darkness of the night sky surrounded by a speckles of stars. She shot an accusatory glare at the moon. Look how high it is up there! It's the middle of the night by now!

This wasn't exactly what she would consider an appropriate time to be wide awake. And it wasn't for lack of trying. She had been lying in bed, tossing in her bed furs, since the moon was just beginning to climb into the sky. But to no progress. She was still wide awake.

It meant that she would be a zombie during dragon training tomorrow, with dark circles accenting her light blue eyes. She would be cranky and short-tempered, or at least more than she usually tended to be.

Yes, sleep seemed such a pleasant thought at the moment, but it stayed just out of her grasp.

The bed furs had long been tangled about her legs, a product of her fitful tossing and turning for the past several hours. Her favorite position on the bed was marked by a barely noticeable groove worn into the mattress by years of use. The bed furs were warmed by her body heat. So was the pillow.

'This sucks.'

The same thought had traced its way across her brain countless times through the minutes and hours that she had lay there in the darkened room. The moon cast foreign shadows though the window. She could barely see in the pitch-blackness of her dark bedroom.

'It's all his fault.'

Astrid knew it wasn't fair to blame Hiccup. Better to blame her own mind, the cause of her insomnia, for rambling on and on and refusing to quiet into sleep. Maybe it was her heart she should blame instead, for thumping wildly whenever she thought of him.

Oh, Gods. She couldn't stop thinking about him. Where he was, in his house with Toothless curled up in his room. Or maybe he was bent over his desk in his room, illuminated by the light of a single candle, tinkering with plans and details and drawings. Or maybe he was awake lying in bed, overrun with thoughts, staring into the darkness too. Just as she was.

Maybe he was lying in his bed thinking of her just as she was lying in her bed thinking of him.

She wasn't angry, sad, or hurt. She was confused and frustrated, but that wasn't quite the whole of it. It was complicated. This wasn't exactly an emotion she could easily name. It was a happy complicated, though, that left her confused as to why it felt so abnormal.

All she wanted to do was be around Hiccup. A lot. To laugh at his stupid sarcastic jokes, to watch him work in the forge, to fly Toothless and Stormfly together, to work on dragon training material over lunch in the Mead Hall, to talk about nothing and everuthing. To just be in his presence would be enough.

'What's he doing right now?'

Astrid allowed herself a rueful smile. Sleeping, of course. Like she should be at this early hour of the morning. Like the rest of the village of Berk was. Every dragon, every Viking, all asleep in their beds and here she was lying awake and thinking of him.

He must be asleep. It's so late at night. In her mind, there was very slim chance of her friend lying awake and thinking of her just as she was lying awake and thinking of him. The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous the fantasy began to sound.

But it made her happy to think that he might be thinking of her in this moment, just as she is thinking of him.

But that led to more confusion. Like, why was she lying awake while the moon was high in the sky? Why was she thinking of her best friend Hiccup?

No one she had ever met had made her feel this way before. And Hiccup wasn't the type of man that somehow made her blush every three minutes. He was awkward and clumsy and sarcastic and smart and brilliant and handsome and …

No, Hiccup was different. And he wasn't the scrawny boy she used to know. A lot has changed since then, and they have both grown and changed for the better.

Hiccup was different than everyone else. It felt like she could talk to him endlessly for hours and hours and never grow bored. Like his presence was all-consuming. Like time itself stopped when they were near each other. He made her question everything about herself, and redefine what she had always assumed was the friendship between them.

'Friendship' didn't seem like the right word for this anymore. Sure, they were friends, best friends even. But it sounded like it only half covered the changing relationship between them.

The only thing Astrid was sure of was that seeing Hiccup made every single day better. The rest of the world could fall apart, but as long as she was with him, flying dragons and walking around the village and talking and eating together in the Mead Hall, it all seemed okay.

'Is that what this is? … Love?'

The thought was exciting and humbling and terrifying all at once, but Astrid felt great about it. Love. Not such a bad word, and the only thing that fit her emotions right now. Maybe that was the word she was searching for earlier.

Friendship was half of it, but the other half was love.

'Love. I am in love with Hiccup.'

The thought was strangely liberating and Astrid closed her eyes with a deep sigh. Content, happy, and finally clear of mind, she was finally able to fall asleep.