Chapter 21

Hiccup was a little nervous. It had been a while since he had set foot in Berk High School. He would have a lot of work to make up and not to mention the fact that he now had to struggle to get along on crutches until his leg healed enough to get fitted into a prosthetic. Astrid had offered to give Hiccup a ride to school on his first day back. He was still perfectly able to drive because it was his left foot that he lost, but Astrid had insisted she take him so she could help him in the door. After all, Hiccup was a total klutz on two feet, much less one foot and a pair of crutches! They really didn't want a repeat of the parking lot incident from the actual first day of school.

Hiccup had concluded that the worst thing about being on crutches at the moment wasn't his lack of balance, but it was the fact that he couldn't hold Astrid's hand as they walked into school together. He really wanted to show her off and proclaim to the whole school that they were dating. It was silly, but Hiccup was really bummed that he couldn't do that. Either way, Astrid would be right by his side with both his and her backpack slung over one of her bony shoulders.

As soon as the pair arrived in the building, they were immediately swarmed by a mass of students fawning over Hiccup's bravery at the Dragon race. The news had even reached the people who weren't actually at the race. The stories of how Hiccup single handedly stopped a massive gunman spread like wildfire. Everyone wanted to know how he did it and how he felt with his lack of leg.

Pushing their way to their lockers, Hiccup and Astrid were stopped by another man with only one leg, eating a rotisserie chicken in the middle of the hallway. "Aye lad! I see ye can barely walk through the calls without being swarmed by yer new fans!" Gobber expressed, waving part of the chicken in the air.

"Something like that. I can definitely concur with the barely can walk part," Hiccup muttered unamused.

Gobber leaned in towards Hiccup and whispered in his ear, "and I see ye even got the lady now too! Atta lad!" Hiccup blushed and looked over at Astrid, standing only a few inches from him. "I gotta go to 'at coaches meetin'. Hope ye stay otta trouble on yer first day back!" He turned to Astrid, "and see you at practice later today. Hiccup, I expect you'll be there too crutchin' round the track faster than e'ryone! Hahaha!" Gobber turned away, still crackling at his own joke.

Scott appeared at Hiccup's locker with a smug look on his face. Ugh oh, Hiccup thought, he's going to make some comment about how he would have taken down the gunman better than me and without losing a leg. Much to Hiccup's surprise, Scott turned towards Hiccup and gave him a somewhat forced smiled. "Man, that was pretty brave what you did at that race. Good job, dude."

"Thanks, Scott. That really means a lot." Scott lifted up his hand to give Hiccup a high five. When Hiccup reciprocated the movement, he suddenly got off balanced on his crutches and felt himself start to tip to one side. "Oh man!" he muttered as he began to sway towards the ground. Thankfully, Astrid was right there beside him to catch him and help him regain his balance. "Thanks," he gushed as he turned towards Astrid and caught her ocean blue eyes.

"No problem! I guess that's why you need to establish "common ground" in a relationship!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Scott interrupted and looked Astrid dead in the face. "You're now dating Hiccup? Scoff! I can't believe it! You turned down me to date this twig! What happened to being too busy with school! If there's anyone you can make time for it should be me!"

"Scott, Hiccup is the most amazing, caring, funniest guy I have ever met. All you ever wanted to do was get in my pants!"

"That's not true! Well…not entirely true."

"Okay then," she muttered under her breath as she helped Hiccup get his books for the day.

The day couldn't go by fast enough for Hiccup. All he wanted to do was get to chemistry- the one class (other than homeroom) that he had with Astrid. But that also meant that he would have to deal with Ms. Lyser to discuss all the labs that he missed; that was definitely not going to be fun at all. But seeing Astrid would make it all worth it.

When chemistry class finally did arrive, Hiccup clumsily crutched to his desk. If there was any phrase to describe Hiccup on crutches, it would be a fawn first learning to walk. But even that description may have given Hiccup too much credit. When the one-legged boy finally reached his seat in the back of the room, his crutches dropped noisily to his side. He had really meant for them to descend to the linoleum floor as inaudibly as possible, but they somehow managed to slip out of his hands in the process. This caused the whole class to turn and stare directly at the boy, now a brilliant shade of crimson. But instead of the annoyed looks usually given by his classmates, they all smiled in unison.

"Hiccup! You're back!" shouted a girl from the front of the room.

"Welcome back man, class felt weird without you" another boy shouted. While Hiccup felt absolutely ecstatic that his classmates were acknowledging his presence in a positive manner, he couldn't help but being completely overtaken by one particular smile that was much brighter and much wider than any of the other students'. Astrid's brilliant sapphire eyes shown with such happiness that no words were needed to make Hiccup understand how happy she was to have him back. For a moment, as Hiccup met her gaze, it felt like they were the only two people in the room. Unfortunately, that moment was broken by an unpleasant, raspy voice.

"Settle down, settle down. I know everyone is happy to see Hiccup but we have a lot of work to cover before you test on Thursday," Ms. Lyser announced.

"It's great to see you too, Ms. Lyser," Hiccup muttered under his breath.

Ms. Lyser continued, "And Hiccup, I need to see you after class to discuss all the classes and labs you missed."

"Oh great, there's my welcome back!" Hiccup muttered again. As the teacher continued talking about whatever information she thought was important that day, Astrid turned around in her desk and mouthed to Hiccup.

"I'll wait for you after class."

"Thanks, Astrid. You might want grab a broom to clean up my remnants after Lyser rips me apart for missing class," he whispered back.

"I think a mop will work better."

"Astrid? Hiccup? Are you having a discussion on equilibrium? I assume you are because that's the only excuse to be talking in class," Ms. Lyser snapped. Both Hiccup and Astrid turned quite red as they slumped down in their seats. Hiccup redirected his attention towards the clock, watching the second hand slowly tick from twelve to twelve and around again. Class was going by so slowly. He forgot that having a class with Astrid didn't necessarily mean that they would get a chance to talk.

When the bell rang, Astrid jumped up to help Hiccup out of his desk as he was still mastering that whole one-legged thing. Frankly, half the time Hiccup would forget about his lack of appendage and go to put his left foot down to get up. That usually didn't end well. As the boy crutched over to Ms. Lyser's desk, Astrid promised that she would wait outside for him. "Good luck," she whispered, gently laying a hand on his shoulder as she walked by.

Ms. Lyser had terrible RBF (resting bitch face.) She never looked happy; therefore, it was extremely hard to read what she was thinking. "Welcome back Hiccup," she began. "As you know, you missed two labs while you were gone. I think it is important for your grade to make them up as it wouldn't be fair if you exempted them…"

And it's not fair that I lost a leg either, Hiccup thought bitterly. Ms. Lyser continued to grumble about the importance of each lab and yada yada. Hiccup was half listening when she suggested that he stay after school a few days to make up the labs. It wasn't a big deal to Hiccup as he could probably do most of the labs with his eyes closed. However, it was all just a big pain in the butt because the later he was a school, the later he got to the computer shop with Gobber, and the later he would get to see Astrid after.

"How did it go?" Astrid asked wide-eyed when Hiccup finally exited the chemistry room.

"Eh, I'm still alive so that's a plus. I pretty much just have to make up the labs after school and do all the homework I missed, but other than that it's all good. Well… other than the fact that I'll have to do the labs without you as my partner."

"Are you kidding me, I just take up space in lab. You don't need me! You are beyond good at chemistry."

"I don't know about that, but I do know that I love having you as my lab partner to keep me sane while Lyser's beady eyes are watching my every move!"

Astrid joked, "One-on-one lab with Ms. Lyser! What can get better than that!"

"Getting teeth pulled, watching grass grow, losing a leg. You know, all that fun stuff would definitely be better than lab with just Ms. Lyser!"

"Maybe I can see if I can stay and assist you because it's not fair that you have to do it alone. When you were gone, I joined another group so I didn't have to do the experiments by myself."

"You don't have to do that, Astrid," Hiccup voiced. "I wouldn't want you to have to go to lab when you don't need to."

"Hiccup, I really wouldn't mind. If it meant helping you and distracting you from Lyser's death glare, I would happily do it."

"Thanks, Astrid. You are amazing." The couple walked off to the locker rooms so Astrid could change into her running clothes.

Because Astrid was Hiccup's ride home, he had to stay at school until she finished cross country practice. Hiccup definitely didn't mind as it would give him a chance to admire her stealth and athletic ability from afar. Hiccup made his way to the infield of the track as Astrid met up with the rest of her team to warm up before their workout. Hiccup lowered himself to the grass and stretched out his feet…well foot in front of him. His hands played with the green carpet, and he watched Astrid do a few warm up laps and then thoroughly stretch each leg.

As Astrid gallivanted around the track in the most graceful fashion, Hiccup had flashbacks to when he first watched her from beside Gobber. Oh how much things had changed so much since then, not too long ago. At that time, the most Hiccup could ever hope for with Astrid Hofferson was to be her friend. But now, now they were dating. Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III was dating Astrid Hofferson. He still really couldn't believe it. She was more than he could ever hope for in life. He would do everything to give her all that she deserved in terms of love, happiness, and support. No matter what. He never wanted to lose this amazing girl.

Hiccup laughed as Astrid picked up his crutches from the grass beside him and tried to walk around on them. Astrid was pretty tall for a girl, but at around six feet, Hiccup was still a good bit taller than she. That caused her to do more of a swinging motion than actually crutching with them. "Careful Astrid! If you don't watch it you might end up needed a pair yourself!" Hiccup laughed. She immediately put the crutches down and sat next to Hiccup, hand on his shoulder. Even though she was a little sweaty from kicking butt in her cross country workout, Hiccup really didn't mind that she sat so close. "I'd say you definitely ran fast enough for both of us today!" Hiccup chortled.

"Today? I think I run fast every day! If not then I'll be left out!" she teased, pointing to Hiccup's missing left foot.

"Oh man, my punny humor is rubbing off on you! What have I done!"

"You know what they say, if you can beat it, join it!" They laughed and sat together until Gobber called her over to finish her cool down.

"Hey, if you slack of on this cooldown because you had such a great workout, you'll pay for it later!" Hiccup called as she walked away.

Turning back to her boyfriend, she smirked, "Oh really! You don't think its call a cooldown for a reason! And anyways, what do you think you can get away with doing on crutches!"

"I'll pin Toothless against you!" the one-legged boy shouted.

"So you're inviting me over after practice now, are we?"

"Astrid! Stop flirting and get yer butt over here!" Gobber yelled. Hiccup laughed as he saw his girlfriend's face turn as red as a cherry. Did he just invite her over? He really didn't know if she was still kidding or not? Well, she's gotta go to my house anyways to drop me off. If she didn't mean it, I could just be a man and ask her to come in, Hiccup contemplated silently.

As Hiccup was deep in thought, trying to think of ways to be manlier and more confident with Astrid, he felt a slender hand upon his shoulder. "Come on, lazy! Get up! We have a lot of work to do tonight! That make up work isn't going to do itself!" The girl extended her hand and helped the boy off the grass and his ass.

"So that means you're coming over?"

"Duh! I went slow during my cool down so you need to pin Toothless against me!" she smiled at her boyfriend and then suddenly took off in a sprint. "Race ya to the car!"

"Hey! No fair! Get back here! Now I'll have to get Toothless to attack you twice as hard!" Hiccup laughed as he crutched off after his girlfriend.