"Leading Berk suits you well, m'lady" He says while he rests his hands in his desk, staring at me with a look that I know well.
"Yeah, well, I born for this, babe" I say approaching him slowly. I watch his lips, I have missed him so much. "You must think that I haven't missed you"
"You seemed to be pretty fine with your duty of advisor only" He says taking away some parts of his armour to get on more comfortable clothes. I take a seat in his bed. "I miss everything as it used to be"
I feel a tremor in his voice. He has been going through a lot these past weeks. I watch him collapse in his chair. It has been a rough day, it was for me and I can't imagine how it was for him. My day consisted in checking the Vikings in Stoick's memorial statue, supervising the twins and their gathering of resources, passing by Berk's Guard to give direct orders from the chief and of course, check on my A-team.
"Hey, you will forget all your worries when Dagur, Heather, Mala and the others arrive. It will be like old times when we used to live in the edge. Come here now, you must be exhausted" I want to comfort him, I spread my arms and he hugs me. I feel him melting and almost falling asleep. "You know if Gobber or Valka saw as, like this, they will think that we are... You know"
"I actually don't mind right now, I love this, peace and quiet, just you and me. But, I thought we were going to discuss some formal details of tomorrow's chiefs gathering, future Mrs Haddock" He says muttering against my clothes and getting comfortable on my lap, after that he continues talking some incoherent words while lowering his voice until he stops talking. I pass my fingers through his hair and watch him to sleep.
I lose myself in thoughts of the past, when we were on the edge, memories with Heather and the gang. We have all grown. I haven't seen Heather in a while, she is Chieftainess of the Berserkers now. Dagur and Mala, Thor knows what those two are doing. The wingmaidens and the baby razorwhips, I bet Valka will be fascinated to see them all. I get interrupted by the crack of the door.
"Oh, hey Astrid! Have you seen Hiccup?" Valka says in a worried but kind tone.
"Yeah, he is here" I say looking down at him, my fingers are still intertwined to his hair. He looks so comfortable. "He had a busy day"
"Yeah, I can only imagine. A guy like Hiccup, at his age, just wishes to explore the world and be free" She says getting closer to look at his son, she takes a seat in the bed by my side. "You have always been there for him, isn't it? You two seem pretty comfortable around each other and let's not talk about the chemistry" I blush a little.
"Sadly, no. I have not always been there for him, or anyone in that matter. When we were younger, he was an outcast. He didn't fit in and well, he was judged and bullying for that by the other kids. I only watched, I thought that if someone saw me with him, they would think I was weak too. How foolish I was. He turned out to be spectacular. I hope he has forgiven us for all those years of bad behaviour" I say in retrospective. Everything that I said was true.
"But, then, how did he...?"
"Get me? How did we end up like this? That is all his doing" I say pointing at him. He did everything, he changed everyone's mind when nobody expected it.
"Someday Astrid, you will tell me everything. But right now, you too need to rest. You can stay if you want. I know Hiccup wouldn't forgive me if I took you away from him right now" She says this caressing Hiccup's hair before she stands up. "Get comfortable, goodnight Astrid"
"Thank you and good night for you too, Mrs Valka"
"Don't call me like that dear, makes me feel old" She says before she closes the door in silence.
It's not the first time I have slept in Hiccup's place, neither in his bed. I guess Stoick always trusted us enough to know that we weren't going to try to produce children before the wedding. Even when we always mentioned that he wanted to have many grandkids, which made us blush every time. Tomorrow will be exciting, I hope nothing goes wrong.