Hello! I am not dead guys! Sorry about the crazy long wait, I know you've been waiting for a chapter for a really long time. I was going to try and get some writing done during the summer which I had planned to take off but unfortunately I did not. Going to school in the summer really sucks and it's super hot and humid too =_=

The next few days were so much fun, Astrid took a whole two weeks off of training and we spent practically all of our time out of class doing stuff together. As she had promised she took me to the school's swimming pool and taught me how to swim.

"Hiccup, you can't hold onto me forever."

"I don't know...maybe I could."

She laughed and rolled her eyes. "You're never going to learn to swim that way." She said before dunking under the water, and by extension, pulling me down with her. I furiously paddled back to the surface where she joined me soon after.

"Why would you do that?" I yelled gasping and grabbing her arm again.

"C'mon scaredy cat, you're almost there you just need to go for it." She said smiling. "You've got all the basics and I'm right here, you're not going to drown, alright."

I looked down into the depths of the pool, feeling uncertain. "...I don't know…"

"Maybe you need some encouragement." She said before lowering the bottom half of her face into the water, after resurfacing she puckered her lips and shot a stream of water straight into my face.

"Argh!" I cried out covering my face with one of my arms. "What the heck? That was supposed to be encouragement?"

She laughed. "Don't like it, then swim away tough guy." Astrid then, using her free arm, started splashing water in my face. I tried blocking the water with my arm, but it was clearly evident that this was a losing battle so I let go of her arm and as fast as possible swam to the pool side, grabbing the edge as soon as I could get to it. "You did it!" She called out as she casually swam over to where I was. "I told you you'd be fine."

I quickly kicked water in her face and smiled evilly. "Revenge!"

Astrid laughed and wiped the water from her face. "Hey, no fair, I was trying to congratulate you."

"It's completely fair. You splashed me at least like eight times."

"With pure intentions." She said feigning innocence with an exaggerated pout.

I shook my head and laughed. "Oh sure, I'm sure you didn't enjoy it at all."

"Of course not, but I will enjoy THIS!" She half-yelled, half-laughed as she used both arms to throw a wave of water at me.

"Mercy, Mercy!" I called out as I tried climbing out of the pool. "I surrender, no more!"

She even taught me how to skate at the school's ice rink, which turned out to be even more difficult to learn than swimming.

"Whoa…" I said as I stood wobbling in the middle of the ice rink, arms stretched out to keep my balance. "I would feel a lot better if you were closer to me, at least then you could catch me if I fell."

"Relax, falling won't kill you."

I scowled. "Yeah, that's easy for you to say, you're literally skating circles around me."

"I play sports Hiccup, falling is my life." She said skating a little closer. "Besides, falling on ice isn't any worse than falling anywhere else, you're just psyching yourself out." Astrid put a hand on my knee and tried spreading my legs a little more apart.

"Whoa, Astrid that's very forward of you." I said jokingly.

She smiled and shook her head. "Ok smart guy, if you're still cracking jokes you can't be that distressed."

"I don't know about that." I said grabbing her shoulder for support. "My sarcasm only increases when I'm anxious."

"Try to just relax your body a bit more, and spread our legs further apart, you're positioned like you're trying to walk and not skate." She positioned her body with her legs spread and her knees slightly bent. "Like this see?" I nodded and tried to imitate her position as best as I could without falling down. "Good." She said smiling at me. "Now you just have to push with one foot and slide on the other, then just keep alternating."

"Uhhh" I said looking down at my feet nervously.

"You'll be fine." She reassured. "It's like riding a bike for the first time, you just have to do it and once you start it's much easier than you think it'll be."

I swallowed and nodded, pushing off with my right foot. This turned out to be a terrible decision, as I had forgotten about that whole, not having a left leg thing. The prosthetic limb was too wobbly to support my weight well enough in the skate and I went tumbling to the ground almost immediately. "Gahh!" I cried out before hitting the ice.

"Hiccup!" Astrid called after me, as she quickly skated over and knelt down to check on me. "Are you alright?"

"I'd ask for ice, but…"

She laughed and helped me into a sitting position. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone wipe out quite so fast while learning to skate."

I rubbed my sore knees and chuckled. "Yeah...remember how I'm missing a foot? Me neither."

Astrid smiled that beautiful smile and leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek. "Well, it was a valiant effort babe."

"What? Just on the cheek?"

"Yup, just on the cheek." Astrid said standing back. "Maybe if you can skate a few meters then you can get a real kiss...maybe." She said shrugging playfully.

On the eighteenth of April we celebrated Astrid's birthday, because the weather had warmed up quite considerably over the past few days we decided to throw it outside and have a barbecue.

"Happy birthday!" Everyone cried out as they raised their paper cups in the air.

"Thanks guys," Astrid said smiling and looking around at everyone. "This is great."

"Honestly, I'm just glad you're taking a break for once in your life" Ruffnut said nudging her. "You've been working too hard, you deserve some time to just chillax."

Tuffnut nodded in agreement. "Yeah, everyone should have time to just be lazy."

"Coming from the master himself." Fishlegs snorted.

Tuffnut grinned enthusiastically. "Hell yeah I am."

"Dude, that wasn't meant as a compliment." Ruffnut said laughing.

"How about we stop talking about relaxing and just relax?" Snotlout said getting up from his seat. "I'm going to put the burgers on the grill how many does everyone want?"

Everyone began shouting out how many burgers they wanted to Snotlout and I shuffled a little closer to Astrid. "Soooo…?"

"Alright, I'll admit it, this was better than I thought it would be." She said sighing and stretching her arms out. "It's almost a shame to have to go back to my old schedule."

"Almost?"

"I like working out, maybe I wouldn't do it so much if not for the olympics and all the teams and the scholarship, but I know what it's for. Working hard for what you love, it's hard but it's really fulfilling." Astrid glanced over at me then covered her face with her hands and groaned. "Gods I sound so cheesy right now. Like a cheap motivational poster."

"No, no," I said shaking my head. "I think it's really admirable, I know you can do it."

Astrid laughed a little. "Yeah well you're not so bad yourself. Have you told your dad about the zoology…?"

"Not yet, I really don't know when the best time is. Just thinking about it makes me nauseated."

"The longer you wait the harder it's going to be you know."

"I know."

"Maybe you just have to get it over with, like ripping off a band-aid."

I nodded. "You're probably right, but it's a lot easier said than done you know?"

"Do you want me to go with you?" She asked. "Maybe if I was there it would help."

"No," I said sighing. "This is between me and my dad, I really should do it myself."

Astrid nodded and put her hand on mine. "Alright, it's up to you, just know I'm here for you if you need me okay?"

"Okay" Hiccup replied smiling at me.

"Astrid!" I heard Ruffnut call for me from the distance.

I glanced over my shoulder at her and then looked back at Hiccup "Guess I got to go." I said giving him a peck on the lips before getting up and walking over to Ruffnut. "What is it?"

"Have you gotten any calls today?"

I furrowed my brows at her. "No...why?"

"I don't know how she got my number, but your mom has tried calling me like five times today." Ruffnut said holding her phone out.

"What?" I snatched the phone from her hand. "How did you know it was her? You didn't pick up did you?"

"No, but she did leave a voicemail." Ruffnut said sighing. "Something about wanting to see you on your birthday, and that she had a gift for you."

"That's a load of yak dung right there." I scoffed. "She hasn't gotten me anything since grade school, she's just trying to get me back to the house so she can ask me for more money."

"Money? You don't have money, you're a broke-ass college student."

"Not my money…" I said rubbing the bridge of my nose. "...his money."

Ruffnut scowled. "Well they can go fuck themselves, he left that to you not them."

"Yeah, well, that's what I keep telling them, as you might imagine they never take it very well."

"So stop going." Ruffntu groaned. "This isn't that complicated."

"I told you, I can't right now." I said. "There's some family shit going on and unfortunately, they're my family."

Ruffnut crossed her arms and glanced over to where Hiccup and the guys were sitting. "Have you told Hiccup about this?"

"...No."

"Astrid!" She cried out throwing her arms in the air. "Fucking tell him!"

I shook my head. "No, I can deal with this on my own. If he finds out then he'll probably offer to pay for something and…"

"And? What's wrong with that?"

"I don't want him to think I'm dating him for his money."

"You're not, and he won't."

"Alright fine, he probably won't but still…"

"What, are you worried about what other people will think? Since when have you ever cared about what other people think?" She asked

"No, that's not it."

"Then what?"

"I've never relied on anyone before, and I'm not planning to start now. I just want to finish this shit, then I'll tell him, alright?"

Ruffnut grunted in frustration. "You're so stubborn sometimes you know that?"

I smirked at her. "You're just figuring this out now?"

She opened her mouth to something but closed it without saying anything. "Don't think I'm just going to forget this."

"Obviously not, you're almost as stubborn as I am."

"Well, Snotlout keeps giving me this look, I think the guys want to give you your present." Ruff said glancing over my shoulder to where the others were sitting.

"A present?" I asked smiling.

Ruffnut smiled back and rolled her eyes. "Don't act surprised, you're bad at it." She then walked past me and over to where the guys were.

I followed after her and watched as Hiccup rummaged through his backpack and pulled out a small wrapped present and handed it to me. "Happy birthday!" they all said in unison. I looked at it down in my hands before delicately pulling the ribbon off and tearing away the paper.

It was a fitness tracker. It had a slim wristband with a rectangular screen and it was in a greenish-blue colour. "Guys, this is..."

"We all chipped in." Hiccup said. "Don't worry about the price."

"You can track your heart rate and you can time your track runs by yourself too." Ruffnut said. "Great for a fitness nut like you."

"Not to mention you can read text messages." Snotlout added.

I smiled. "Thanks guys, this is awesome. Really awesome."

"Try it on, try it on, try it on!" Tuffnut started chanting.

I opened up the box and pulled the tracker out, wrapping it around my wrist and fastening it. They all smiled at me and Snotlout gave me a triumphant thumbs up.

"Alright," Ruffnut said clapping her hands together. "Now where are my burgers? I'm seriously hungry."

I moved to sit back down beside Hiccup, still looking at my watch. "I'm glad you like it." He said.

"I do, thank you."

"Don't thank me too much, the only thing I picked was the colour."

"Well, it's a very pretty colour."

Hiccup grabbed his bag again and started rustling through it. "I, uh, got you something else."

"Hiccup!" I said shoving him a little. "This is enough, you don't need to get me anything else."

"No, I did." He said pulling out another small box and handing it to me, I just stared at it. "Come on just take it, it's not anything crazy, I promise."

I pursed my lips and took the box, taking the ribbon off and ripping the paper away. Underneath was a plain brown box which I opened. I glanced over at him and took it out, it was a travel adapter. "An adapter?"

"I figured once you get to the Olympics, you'll need it, wherever you end up."

I couldn't help but feel the corners of my lips move up. "Hiccup,"

"I know soon you'll have to go back to training, and that sucks, I'm not going to lie." He said looking down into his hands. "And when you make it, which I know you will, you'll probably be training even more, you might even have to go somewhere else. Obviously I'd like us to spend more time together and I don't want you to have to leave, but I know how important this is to you, so it's important to me too."

I quickly pulled him into a hug. "Thank you."

"You seriously shouldn't worry about it so much, you'll be amazing, I know it."

I tried to make an extra fluffy chapter since it's been such a long time, I hope you enjoyed!