I woke up, but without a familiar presence next to me. I found myself taking a sharp breath as my memories of the previous day all came crashing back into my awareness now. The emptiness returned. But there was one comforting, familiar thing however.

"Morning tea?" Ruffnut offered, seeing me awake now and approaching me with a mug.

"Thanks," I replied as I sat up in my floor bed and accepted it from her. Toothless was still near me, and Fury was still watching her egg, but otherwise, everyone else was gone.

"Johann took all our kids for a walk a little while ago," she explained, "so you could wake up easy. But how are you?"

I just shook my head, not wanting to say a thing.

"Just take things one step at a time, okay?" my hostess suggested. "And know that I and others are taking care of the rest."

I nodded, still quietly as I leaned back against Toothless as he watched over me. I then took a slow sip of tea. It felt like I was waking up into a nightmare . . . one that was seeming to be only beginning.

— — — — —

I didn't venture out of Ruffnut's house much at first, but when I did, I wasn't seeing Astrid at all now . . . out in the village, anywhere. And my own house—that I had even built with my own hands—it was suddenly hostile, even alien, territory.

I didn't even notice Astrid's presence during our baby's funeral pyre ceremony, which I still had to lead as chief. I only saw my father, and I didn't speak with him. He couldn't even really look at me. I presumed Ingrid was at home, caring for Astrid. Ingrid's betrayal was bad enough, but given our sometimes challenging past, I could have expected it from her. My father however . . . I was his own flesh and blood. I can understand his sticking by his wife—but my father turning away from me? This was hard to take from him, although he had disowned me once in the past when he felt I had sided with the dragons over our village.

Sometimes, parents give their deceased infants a name. But I just couldn't give my child one without my wife choosing it as well. I also couldn't abide the place where Viking custom and beliefs said my baby's spirit would go. As my daughter had fought no battles, our lore said she would not go to Valhalla, which our legends said was for male warriors only anyway, or even to Sessrúmnir, Freyja's hall in the same realm as Valhalla for female warriors who had fallen in battle. No, instead our legends said that my daughter would go to the Netherworld, where the goddess Hel ruled, which made our memorial here doubly sad. Some said Hel's world, Helheim, wasn't necessarily such a bad place. Some legends had told of feasting and more that went on there. But to me, it just wasn't good enough for my daughter . . . my innocent daughter.

"The dragons," I said, addressing the gathering as I stood next to my daughter's funeral pyre before it was lit, "simply have just two worlds in their understanding . . . the world of Spirit, and the world we see around us. Some of us pray to Odin, some to Thor, some to Freyr and Freyja or others. Some aspire to join the honoured dead in Valhalla, and some believe they will wind up somewhere else, based on how they lived their life.

"But my daughter," I continued, "she never had a chance at life . . . to do anything, or prove who she was. So, does she deserve to go to Helheim for her lack of deeds or valour in this life, as some say? I can't accept that. I just can't. My daughter's spirit was just that . . . spirit. She came from there, from Spirit, to join us for a time . . . and I believe she's just returned back to where she came from. So that," I sniffed with increasing difficulty with my voice breaking, "is where I am committing her now . . . not to Hel, but to Spirit . . ."

I stood with my family—with Toothless, Fury, Little Toothless and my son, Eric—unable to continue for a moment.

Toothless finally blew a gentle, blue flame . . . lighting the torch I was holding loosely in my hand. I looked at him, just nodding in thanks for helping me to continue.

I now hesitated for a moment though, before lighting that pyre. I looked at that pile of wood. It felt like I was not only about to say goodbye to my daughter, but to my marriage as well . . . to the life of joy and love I had savoured so deeply.

My hand now couldn't bring the torch to touch that wood. I was saying goodbye to too much.

Finally, Toothless gently murmured at me, gesturing towards the pyre.

"Dad," my son quietly translated. "Toothless says it would be an honour if you would let him light the pile for you."

I remained numb, immobilized, unable to speak.

Ruffnut and her family now moved to join me, and my family, in solidarity. She put an arm supportively around my back, reaching out to me as no one else besides my dragons were.

"I feel like . . . I'm burning the remains of my marriage," I haltingly explained to Ruffnut in tears, " . . . as well as my daughter's body."

"No, Hiccup, you're not," Ruffnut gently said to me. "I swear you're not. You're just sending your daughter back to Spirit, as you say. That's all you're doing here.

"Toothless, Fury, Little T, Eric," she then invited, turning to them, "let's help Hiccup do what needs to be done, and help his daughter go back to Spirit. Let's all light the pile here together, okay?"

She now placed her hand on mine, gently taking hold of the torch with me, and then guided it to touch the wood that made up the pyre as the dragon side of my family all gently blew flames on it as well, with Eric laying his hand on Little Toothless in symbolic help. Soon the pile of wood was gently ablaze as we all stepped back.

I just embraced Ruffnut now . . . unable to hold it together anymore as I felt someone else gently taking the torch out of my hand. I cried as I buried my face against the side of her head as even Johann laid an understanding hand on my shoulder. What made this all the more painful for me was that this was Astrid's place, her role in my life . . . to share my grief here, and so much more. But she was absent, horribly absent.

Ruffnut just held me tightly, silently inviting me to just let it all out. I tried for form words of appreciation, of thanks . . . but I was just drowning in my sorrow, barely able to breathe myself.

As my tears eventually subsided, I was able to look around me. Most all the village was now gathered close around me and my family in quiet support. I saw Ingrid had now joined my father on the outer edge of the crowd. But Astrid was still nowhere to be seen. Under any other circumstance, they should have been right next to me. My father and Ingrid averted their gaze as I looked towards them though. At least they had a sense of shame that I was having to rely on the comfort and support of friends, rather than family.

I could have ruined my father and Ingrid after this, even cast them out of the village as chief . . . for the sake of honour alone. But that wasn't my way. I couldn't drive a final stake into what was the rest of my family, or my marriage. Not yet.

But I didn't know what happened next . . . what even could happen. Ruffnut was right though. That wasn't my job.

— — — — —

The following days were a blur. I was in utter shock most of the time. I was fed. I rested. Toothless was always at my side . . . but that's about all I could sense or remember. Ruffnut and her family just took care of everything else.

I would look at her . . . at Ruffnut . . . as she worked around her house, taking care of both her family, and mine at the moment. I wondered what my life would have been like if I had chosen her, instead of Astrid, as my wife. There seemed to be a calmness, a steadiness, about Ruffnut and her household . . . something I just didn't see about her in the past. She seemed always focused on family now . . . encouraging a child, then helping her husband do something, then checking on me to make sure I was alright. I never thought she could be so caring and responsible. I began to regret not seeing that in her.

"Come on, spill," she'd say to me when she'd catch me lost in thought at times.

"You don't want to know," I'd reply with a subtle, rueful expression on my face.

"I'm glad you dig me, too," she'd reply with a wink before turning to do something else, using the same expression she had that one fateful night we shared together before battling to retake our village years ago.

One day, she surprised me and just sat down right next to me as I sat up in bed and leaned against a wall in her house. Everyone else had gone for another walk, except for Fury sleeping around her egg. I had even invited Toothless to just join everyone else outside this time. Now, I just gave Ruffnut a curious, almost skeptical look as she gently smiled at me.

"You ready to try today?" she asked. "Or at least have me try?"

I looked down. "I don't know," I said, now knowing what she was talking about.

"Someone between you two has gotta make the first move here," Ruffnut continued, "and while it should be her, I don't think that'll happen, at least not without help."

"My heart, and hope . . . and pretty much everything else . . . are so wounded," I confessed.

"I know," Ruffnut replied, taking my arm and hand onto her lap and rubbing them. "But someone's gotta do something, sometime here."

"I'm stuck," I noted. "I don't want to go forward, alone. But I'm not sure if I can go back, either."

"There could be some good stuff on the other side of it all," she suggested, "if you, or if we, do this."

"I don't know," I sighed, looking down again.

"Hiccup," Ruffnut gently said, "this is about as close as I can be with you. But you deserve more, much more. And right now anyway, she's the only one who could give it to you."

"Most all of what I once felt for her seems like it's died," I admitted.

"Nope," Ruffnut disagreed to my surprise somewhat, as she now rubbed my heart with her hand. "It's just asleep . . . in here. Would you let me prove that, or at least try to?"

I hesitated, looking at her.

"You've said you owe me one for all this here," she said, looking around us, "so I'm calling in that favour, right now, okay?"

"I'm trapped," I reiterated, looking away from her in front of me now.

"So is she," Ruffnut advised. "Help me to free her then . . . and you, too. At least make a start."

I just turned to embrace Ruffnut. I knew she was surprised, even a little startled by it. But I just had to sample my alternate life—my life with her that never was—one more time.

"Alright," I accepted as I held, and even savoured her, "do it."

I then let Ruffnut go, completely—rubbing my face with my hands as if to wash that other possibility from me, and begin my return to the life that I had, and had once chosen.

"I understand," Ruffnut said to my surprise as she laid a hand on my shoulder. "I sometimes wonder where we might have gone, too. But my life with Johann . . . it's good, really good. And your life with Astrid can be, too. It can."

Ruffnut then surprised me yet again, as she now moved and kissed me directly on my lips. It wasn't a light kiss, either, but a deep one. It felt good, really good. But somehow, it didn't feel right. Almost, but not quite . . . not this time, or this life, anyway.

"Something's missing here, isn't it?" Ruffnut said knowingly as she gently ended our kiss.

I just nodded slightly.

"I just wanted to prove that," she noted, "to both you, and me. I'll go see if I can talk to her now, okay?"

"Okay," I accepted as I now leaned back against the wall again and just closed my eyes.

— — — — —

Ruffnut was gone for a good while. Somehow, I began to find at least some calm or peace with the idea that it could be just me now, alone, taking care of my family . . . making dinner for everyone, ensuring that occasions like birthdays were celebrated, helping one of us feel better when we were sick. It wouldn't necessarily be good, but it started to feel like it could be okay.

Finally, Ruffnut returned. "Hiccup," she said entering the house again, "if anyone's in hell right now, Astrid is."

Surprisingly, I felt neither good nor bad at that news.

"She knows what she has done, and what she allowed to happen," Ruffnut continued. "But she doesn't know how to dig herself out . . . or even take the first step."

"Figures," I sighed, looking down.

"Do you want to solve this or not?" Ruffnut now asked.

"So I get hurt, even shoved out of my own house," I shot back, "through no fault of my own. I did nothing wrong! But now I have to make the first step? Even reach and dig someone else out of a hole they dug themselves? Sorry, but that's a little much for me."

"What if you thought you had killed a child you loved?" Ruffnut asked. "And then in your grief, suddenly felt you had killed your marriage with the one you loved as well? What if you wronged her like this? Or even me, just suppose?"

Ruffnut just looked at me for a moment, letting that sink in.

"That's where she is, Hiccup," Ruffnut continued, pausing again.

"Then how would you feel if she or I then reached out to you anyway, while you were feeling all this?" she said. "Astrid would give you anything, Hiccup . . . anything, if you could reach out to her now."

I almost could see her point . . . almost. "I can't do it," I finally replied though looking away, almost coldly. I found myself shutting down against my wife now. It was all too much.

Ruffnut now looked down. "Okay," she sighed, leaning on one of her cooking tables across from me. "But you know . . . for the first time, I'm really disappointed in you, Hiccup. I thought you were better than this. My husband would have done this," she said almost in anger. "I did pick the right guy . . . and the right guy picked me!"

Ruffnut then stormed out of the house, leaving me alone, stunned. Now suddenly, I felt truly alone in the world. Toothless wasn't beside me at the moment, and even Fury had her back turned towards me as she dozed, wrapped around her egg.

I looked around. I was in someone else's house now . . . a friend's admittedly, or so I still hoped. But it wasn't mine. I didn't know where I'd find a real haven for myself anymore.

I sighed, got up, and then just walked out through the still open front door as well. All of a sudden, life itself began to feel like a worse hell than anything I could die and go to.

What was I here for? I found myself thinking as I now stood outside on the porch of Ruffnut's house. I no longer knew.

"I don't expect you to forgive me," a voice behind me now quietly said.

A cold shock ran through me as I heard that. I looked down, not saying a thing.

"But even your condemnation, your hatred, would feel better to me than what I'm feeling from myself right now," the voice continued.

I now quivered, suddenly feeling agitated as I looked up into the sky, around the village, almost anywhere but at her. I could not stand to look at her at that moment. I couldn't say a thing in response. Closing my eyes tightly, I suddenly felt the wound in my heart and spirit reopening all over again. Tears began leaking from my eyes, but I strove to hide what I was feeling from her.

"Hiccup . . ." she said.

"DON'T SAY MY NAME!" I snapped ferociously while looking elsewhere, finding I was hurt far more than I'd ever realized. I dropped to my knees now, still facing away from her.

"I deserve that," she said. "I deserve it all. Even kill me if you like, right here."

I heard her knife now drop on the porch.

"Because I don't want to live like this," she continued with growing sadness. "I can't. So if it'll get me killed, I will say your name . . . Hiccup."

I now stood up again and angrily turned towards her. For the first time in my life, I did the unthinkable . . . I hated my wife. I truly hated her, and what she'd allowed to happen to me, and to us.

She just stood there before me, in her soft, white indoor tunic and some leggings, with tears in her eyes.

"Kill me . . . please. I can't live like this anymore," she openly invited, even pulling the neck of her tunic further open and exposing her heart and gentle cleavage towards me.

Ohh how I had once kissed that very skin of hers there . . . savoured her scent, her warmth, the sound of her breathing, the beating of her heart.

I missed that. I missed it with all that I was . . . every ounce of me! I now found myself unable to take my eyes off of that place on her—that place she had opened to me again . . . her heart.

Then, I just lunged at her . . . craving to bury my face, my whole head against that inviting neck and chest of hers one more time. I found us both falling down onto the porch as she now gripped me with an equal ferocity while my hand moved on its own to protect her head against our fall. I raised my head as our bodies landed on the wood of that porch with a thud, and on total instinct alone, I found her mouth and kissed it . . . kissed it so very hard.

She latched onto my whole body with hers. One of her hands now grabbed the back of my head like an iron tong.

She, and my awareness of her, it just came flooding back into me . . . all that she was. We both moaned with raw forgiveness into each other's mouths as we just tried to devour one another.

I finally broke our kiss . . . because I had to kiss and savour her cheek, her ear, that neck of hers, and so much more. I just had to experience all of her again. I was starved for her . . . just starved. And she was equally starved for me.

Finally able to start catching our breaths amid our ravenous kissing of one another, we started to share words again.

"I love you, Astrid," I wept. "I so love you."

"I love you, Hiccup," she cried in deepest remorse, almost agony. "I'm . . . so sorry . . . ohh I am so sorry . . ."

"I forgive you, Astrid," I sobbed as well, as I embraced her hard and now buried my face against the side of her head. "It's alright, I forgive you."

We very nearly just took each other . . . made love . . . right there on the porch, in the middle of the village in broad daylight, until we heard . . .

"Why don't you two just take this inside," Ruffnut invited with a smile, next to her own husband. "Our house is yours for the afternoon here. Just get reacquainted for a while . . . and then let us know when you want dinner. Johann and I will keep the kids and dragons entertained here. Go on."

Even Toothless was beside them now, just nodding and motioning with his head for us to go inside. My wife and I just tearfully smiled at them for a moment as we lay on their porch.

"Astrid," I said, turning back to her, still having her pinned underneath me, "would you be my wife again?"

"That you would ask me to be your wife again . . ." she sighed tearfully, "it's a heaven I couldn't have dreamed of, even a little while ago here."

"That's the problem," I sniffed, "you always were my wife . . . that's why it hurt so much."

"Hiccup . . ." she cried as she held me tightly again.

"Ohh, Astrid . . ." I could only sigh as well, holding my wife tightly and savouring her some more.

"Let me take you inside . . . and start making the hurt better," she tearfully asked.

"I want to make your hurt better, too," I said, raising my head to gaze at her.

"You already have, my love," she assured. "You so already have."

We then helped each other up, and just walked inside, closing the door behind us. I am not ashamed . . . not ashamed at all . . . to confess Astrid and I immediately stripped each other bare, and made perhaps the best and sweetest love of our lives that afternoon.

Finally, we were each whole again, as we lay together in one another's arms on the floor mattress I was borrowing, utterly spent.

"Hiccup," Astrid quietly sighed as she rested her head in her favourite place of all against my neck and shoulder, "I still feel I've really damaged us in some way, from here on."

"No, Astrid," I assured as I drew her even closer and gently cradled and rocked her with my entire body. "You've strengthened us now . . . you've made us stronger together."

"Really?" she asked, now pulling her head back a little and looking at me.

"I swear it," I said, placing my hand at the most special place of all to me, " . . . on your heart."

— — — — —

Astrid and I didn't let go of each other for a second the rest of that day and evening. Ruffnut wouldn't allow us to cook or help in any way. "Just savour each other," she insisted.

So I did . . . we did. I was almost overcome with remorse myself at times—how I had briefly felt about Astrid, even hated her. But as bad as I felt at times, Astrid felt even worse.

"I will never be able to make this up to you, Hiccup," she said with regret as I cradled her in my lap on the floor mattress we were sharing, " . . . never. I broke all three of our vows . . . every one. I didn't allow . . ."

"Shhhhhhh," I soothed as I interrupted her and brought our foreheads gently together. "You will never have to make any of this up to me . . . ever, Astrid."

"But why, Hiccup?" she asked.

"Because," I replied, " . . . we forgive, as one."

She looked at me with such a tearfully grateful smile. I smiled, too, seeing her absolved of everything, her spirit shining again within her. She was my Astrid once more.

"Dinner's ready, everyone," Ruffnut called out, as we all then gathered into a circle on the floor.

"I didn't know you all ate on the floor, too," Astrid managed to remark to Ruffnut as we both now just scooted to the edge of the mattress.

"We haven't," Ruffnut confirmed. "But we have a young dragon who's not quite tall enough to join us at the table, plus there's too many humans to fit around our table . . . and someone here I think wants it," she added, smiling at me.

"Because," I now chimed in, "I want you, Astrid, to dine in the lap of luxury tonight . . . mine."

Astrid just wonderfully smiled as she resettled herself into my lap again and draped an arm around my shoulder, as I held her up with one arm as well.

"Okay," she smiled. "We each have one free arm here . . . I have a left one, and you have a right one. So how do we eat?"

"Tonight," I replied unveiling one more clever piece of romantic magic, " . . . we eat, as one."

Astrid could only look at me as she just embraced me once more. I was soon holding her tightly again as well. "Please eat everyone," Astrid said, her voice muffled against my neck and shoulder. "We'll join you in a minute here. My husband," she sniffed, "he's just . . ."

Toothless now moved around behind Astrid and I, inviting us with a tilt of his head to lean back a little and relax against him, so we didn't have to hold each other up all the time by ourselves.

"Toothless . . . I'm so sorry," my wife tearfully apologized as she turned her head and looked at him as he settled behind her now. His nudging her face in forgiveness caused her to cry all over again. Toothless now looked at her deeply, and grunted.

"He's saying, 'Dear one, even a dragon makes mistakes,'" Eric translated. "'You are loved . . . and forgiven . . . always.'"

Even I was moved to tears now. It's amazing we got around to eating anything that night.

Eventually, my wife and I balanced a plate of food on her lap, and Astrid fed me dinner . . . every single bite . . . just as I did for her, with her sucking on my fingers practically every time I brought food to her mouth. And the way she sensuously ate an apple as I held it for her, wantonly looking at me the whole time she did . . . I practically lost it right there. I couldn't resist sharing the last bites with her though, kissing her across the remains of that apple as we did.

I knew that our son, while so relieved and glad that his mother and I were truly back together, was still thoroughly embarrassed at how his parents were just 'making out' during dinner here.

"Kids," Ruffnut interjected however in the middle of it all. "Pay attention. This is what great love looks like . . . when you've been through hell, and found each other again at the end of it."

"We're sorry," I apologized for both my wife and I as we now stopped and tried to tone things down . . . at least a little.

"No, don't be," Ruffnut replied, leaning against her own husband. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen . . . aside from what Johann and I share. And I'm thinking we might have our own 'lap nights' here. The way you two do it . . . looks like a lot of fun!"

"Gag me with a spoon," Eric finally sighed, as only a four year-old could.

"Hey," I gently noted turning to him with Astrid still in my lap, "this is what made you possible . . . what brought you to us. Ever think about that?"

"Well . . ." he hesitated.

"Come here," I said, grabbing him with my free right arm. "We love you, too . . . okay? I just couldn't be the father you deserve though, without sharing love like this with your mother. You and I should know, right? I've been trying for days without her here . . . and it was hell for all of us, wasn't it?"

"Sort'a . . . I guess," he conceded, reluctantly.

"Would you help me tell your mother here that we love her, so much?" I said openly as I held my son close now.

"Dad!" he resisted in objection.

"Eric, I'm serious here," I quietly told him. "Our family nearly broke apart . . . it nearly died over the loss of your sister. I never want that kind of thing to happen to us again. So I don't want any of us, even you, to ever forget what has happened here. Because it will help us be the best family we can be, okay?"

"Okay," he allowed.

"So what do we tell your mom?" I gently asked again as Astrid began tearing up, leaning her forehead against my cheek.

"We love you!" Eric and I said together to her.

Ruffnut and her family applauded, even whistled, as our dragons roared their admiration as well, while Eric and I both embraced a deeply grateful Astrid.

We were a family again. Thank the gods, we were a whole family again.

— — — — —

But there was one more element, one more relationship that needed to be repaired . . .

"Mom, I came from you . . . but I belong with him," Astrid said to her mother after she had brought me back to our home, that evening. My wife just didn't want to waste time, or let things linger and fester any longer. "Please don't ask me to tear myself apart between you and my husband," she requested.

I could tell Ingrid was deeply ashamed of her own role in all this—too much so to really begin making amends here. My father, love him, just stood next to his wife, unable to say anything either.

"It's alright," I assured, extending my hand. "For my wife, and for the memory of our daughter . . . I forgive you. That's how much I love and treasure them both."

"When you put it like that," Ingrid sniffed, "I can see how wrong I was. It shames me, it does."

"Then forgive yourself," I invited, " . . . 'cause it's the only way you'll be able to accept my forgiveness."

Ingrid cried as I now took her into my embrace, and assured her that everything was truly alright now.

"I just wanted to protect my daughter," Ingrid sobbed.

"I know," I soothed as I gently rocked my mother-in-law and stepmother.

Astrid couldn't help but move closer and embrace me from the side in admiration. Then she gave me a most precious gift . . .

"I want to bear you a daughter," she whispered in my ear. "I want to try again . . ."

I looked at her for a moment as I still held her mother. Astrid nodded in confirmation of what she had just whispered to me. Now I was tearing up with joy at the love my wife was showing me, being willing to risk it all once more.

And so, after bringing the rest of our family home, Astrid and I returned to our private haven upstairs in our loft, and began trying again . . . that very night.

"I may not be very good about keeping commitments when I should," Astrid said as she laid me down on our floor bed again at last, "but I do keep my promises."

"Astrid . . ." I could only sigh as I now allowed her to do just that—to keep a promise, one of wonderful indulgence, she had made to me before this all began.

Even if we never had another child, I loved my wife once more . . . and she loved me.