Written: 9/9/2015 - 04:21 A.M.

AN: Title comes from the song by My Chemical Romance of the same name, which came on my Pandora station as i was writing the second chapter and fit with some of the themes I'm going for here. This is the first chapter of a planned three-shot, but after an excited review and a surplus of ideas this is quickly growing into a larger project, so look forward to the next chapter next Wednesday, fair warning though, you're not going to like it much more than this, but give it time, it ends happy i promise.

Edited: 9/24/2015 - 2:31 P.M.

Fixed a glaring timeline problem that i caught, no one pointed it out but that doesn't mean ya'll didn't notice. Also, in lieu of this no longer being a three-shot i changed the summary up a little. The lyrics are from the song Dark On Me by the Starset. All credit where it is due.


The first time she said good bye to him it broke her heart. She would never forget the sight of him standing outside his father's lavish house; dark green scarf blowing listlessly in the still chilly May air. She'd picked that scarf out for him, she remembered, before the homecoming dance their sophomore year, the first school dance they went to together. It's deep forest tones brought the light out in his eyes, she'd told him, as he tried awkwardly to remind her they were at the shop for her dress. That thought finally released the tears she'd been fighting back for half an hour and she broke down, pulling over not twenty feet down the road from his driveway. She cried for Hiccup, the pain she was causing him and how unfair she was being. She cried tears of anger, hating herself for what she was putting him through, all because of her own selfish fears. He was perfect, and she was... something,; not enough, not to give back what he gave, not enough to love him like he loved her. Finally she was crying for stupid things, like her uncle dying and her dad losing his boat, she needed to cry as much as she hated the thought, and her body was going to make up for lost time. She felt stupid and selfish and sad and she wanted to talk to him. But she couldn't, she'd fucked that up too.

As if God himself were on high, looking down on her and damning her to a customized hell just for her, she heard the distinct jarring crank of a motorcycle's engine turning over. Her head snapped up, lethargic sniffles ceasing and she knew immediately that she had to move. Alas, she also knew there wasn't a snowball's chance she was going to get off this country road before he made it out of his drive way.

She watched the rear view the whole time as she tried to start her shitty Tahoe, failed, tried again pumping the gas, rammed it in gear and started creeping forward. No sooner than she reached idle speed the lean black bike, always far too large for such a slender rider in her opinion, banked around the bend in the driveway and into view. She saw him, as plain as he saw her on the deserted road, he'd taken off the scarf as well as the jeans that she realized she'd bought him three weeks ago; he didn't have a single piece of protective gear on, two years of riding that thing around to her great displeasure and she'd never seen him so much as sit on it without a helmet, jacket, and gloves. Now only the same Call of Duty T-shirt he'd had since before they started dating covered his chest, twice it had survived her attempts to get rid of it, and the oil stained jeans he wore when he worked on his bikes. As if he could read her thoughts, feel her concern, he kicked the gear lever down once and popped the clutch as he passed her. The front wheel lifted off the pavement and it took him three seconds to be at the gentle curve a quarter mile down the road.

She spent that summer before her first year in college in her parent's home, ignoring everyone. Rachel and Scott called her constantly for the first few weeks, she assumed Fishlegs had told his girlfriend what she'd done to his best friend and they were all trying to figure out what the fuck she was doing. She assumed, because she never answered their calls. She called Hiccup every day, sometimes multiple times. She would listen to his voice mail and hang up, or leave one of her own, usually terrible short little things where she tried not to sound like she'd been crying for half a month as she choked out a 'call me back, please?'. He never answered, and he never called back, finally after three weeks she broke and late one night called Fishlegs. Desperate to talk to anyone that may have talked to him.

"Astrid..." It was all he said when he picked up the phone and she wanted to cry again, at the cautious tone in his voice like he was soothing a wounded tiger, and heavy with silent accusations.

"Have you talked to him?" She said after a pause where she tried to figure out her angle, she would not cry while on the phone with Fredrick Ingerman, she would not be weak in front of him.

"... I have." She clenched her jaw, wishing she could reach through the phone and punch him in between the eyes. Must he do this now? Why couldn't he just be helpful and tell her everything he'd heard from Hiccup in the last two weeks, judgment and condemnation on the side. Instead she took a deep breath through her nose and tried to think clearly. Fishlegs held all the cards and raging misplaced frustration at him though the phone would get her nothing but a dial tone.

"Is he alright?"

He didn't answer for a full minute, it became apparent pretty early in the silence that she was not going to like what he had to say. Finally, after a steadying breath of his own he spoke, and with equal parts fear and relief she heard that he sounded fifty shades less stern when he did. "No, Astrid, he isn't. He won't answer my calls, but he's called twice. Once after you..." he trailed off awkwardly but recovered quickly, sparing her the need to finish his sentence, "and again today actually. To check up on … us." She asked the question, but she knew the answer, knew before she called Fishlegs and he confirmed it.

"He won't answer your calls... He left Berk?" Fishlegs didn't bother trying to cover up his mistake, she respected him for that.

"Gobber says his dad knows where he is, probably does himself, but he won't tell us. Just that he's safe." Astrid had to hang up soon, she would not cry in front of him, even if it were over the phone. He seemed to sense this because he hurriedly spoke up, "Astrid, we're all worried about you too, give Rachel a call back soon, she's hysterical, you'd be doing us all a favor."

She couldn't muster even a half-hearted fake chuckle at his attempt at comic relief, just a subdued "yeah, sure." before she hung up. Fishlegs was a good boyfriend, she decided, and in that moment she hated him for it. He wasn't half the boyfriend... She called him for the first time that day then, nine rings she counted, same as every time before his voice mail started and she listened to the well memorized message. She cried for the first time during one of her calls, and begged for what could've been the first time in her life. She begged him to come home, begged to be forgiven, for a call or a text, anything. She told him she would go to Pasadena community colleges and he could go to Cal-Tech, or he could come with her and Ruff and Fish to University of Colorado and they could get married and start a family now, degree or not. She picked apart every argument she had used to convince herself that they couldn't be together until she couldn't speak or sob any longer, and then she told him she loved him and hung up.

The next day she called Rachel when she woke up, they weren't even off the phone before her best friend was banging on her front door and for the first time in what might as well have been an eternity Astrid felt something other than loss and heartache. She sniffed pathetically as she opened the door to allow the tall blonde in and wrapped her arms around her friend's back when she was enveloped in a hug too tight it might've caused lasting damage to her shoulders.

She still called Hiccup every night before she went to bed after that, but she didn't isolate herself at home during the day. She allowed Ruff to show up every morning and coax her out of bed, and they spent the last weeks of summer before they left home catching up with all the friends they might not ever see again. He never called back, and she never wailed into his answering machine again though she did leave a few more messages. Until one night a week before she was to set off for Colorado she called and got the error message that told her the number was no longer connected to a service carrier. She cried over him for the last time that night, in the morning she had to see Ruffnut and Fishlegs off, they were going down to settle the apartment the three of them were going to share. She was not over him, the wounds weren't healed, the blood wasn't even clotted yet. She still bled, a lazily rivulet that fell with every beat of her heart, but she would be fine. She had to be, because it wasn't his fault she felt this way, it was hers.


AN: Special thanks to my loving girlfriend and Beta reader for this chapter, Shattering Darkness, if you're into the Kingdom Hearts fandom feel free to check out her stories.