She felt absolutely horrible. Astrid could not remember a time she'd woken up feeling worse. All she knew was that it hurt to breathe. Her face felt weirdly numb, and her head was killing her.

"Urgh," she groaned and reached for her head, furrowing her brow. Her eyes felt heavy, like they were swollen, and she squinted at the bright light above her. This was a mistake and only made her head hurt worse. God, what the fuck happened, she thought and screwed her eyes shut in an effort to make the bed stop spinning.

"Hey," she heard someone say next to her, and it felt familiar somehow, but she couldn't even be bothered to see who it was. She didn't really care; she just wanted the goddamn spins to stop.

"Wuh," she rasped, her dry lips hurting from the cracks.

"It's okay," the male voice said, and she felt a hand on her shoulder. His touch was warm and comforting and something else to focus on. "You're okay. You landed yourself in hospital."

She furrowed her brow again, confused. Hospital? God, that fire must have been worse than I thought.

"Is … my bird okay?" she asked then, her voice low and raspy.

Hiccup and Matthew stopped dead in their tracks. Their eyes met and slowly, Matthew said, "Sure. Was she ill before?"

Astrid still hadn't really opened her eyes. "Well," she got out, "my kitchen caught fire."

Matthew took Hiccup aside, who was just as confused as Astrid.

"Listen," the doctor murmured so only Hiccup could hear. "It's normal to be confused and have some memory issues after a concussion but, uh, didn't Stormfly pass away a couple of years ago?"

Hiccup nodded, his heart racing. He still remembered it like it was yesterday. Astrid had been absolutely devastated at the death of her beloved bird, the only friend who'd kept her company during her first year on Berk.

Matthew was muttering to himself and to Hiccup's horror, he sounded urgent and confused. His friend turned to him with an almost alarmed look on his face, his fingers flying across his beeper now.

Hiccup knew him well enough to be alarmed – "What's-" he stared but Matthew cut him off, "Okay, I want you to stay calm and listen, okay? Go take a walk. I need to run a few tests, and I really can't have you in the way. This time, I mean it."

Hiccup stopped dead in his tracks, arms sinking to his side. Anger bubbled up inside him, unusual for him, but the panic was back. "Matt, you can't just order me to just leave and not tell me what's going on – "

"I absolutely can. I promise I'll explain later, but right now it's really important that you just go outside and take a breather, okay?"

The nurse from last night, Freya, quickly walked in, a doctor Hiccup had never seen before following her suit. Before he could argue further, all three of them strode past him and gathered around Astrid's bed.

His wife was still lying there, eyes screwed shut, her other hand clasping the edge of her bed now. He took a deep breath, and anger made way for a deep, primal sense of dread.

She just wanted to sleep. She was just so incredibly tired.

"It's nice to see you awake," someone said. "I'm Dr Emrys, head of the Neurology Department of the Mercy Hospital. I've got our lovely nurse Freya and Dr Layton, our internal medicine physician with me."

The black-haired doctor was holding a light into her eyes and instructed her to look left, right, up, and down. She obliged reluctantly. Please, can we do this later, I'm tired, she thought.

"Astrid, do me a favour and tell me your birthdate?"

"18th April 1994. I'm twenty-three."

"And do you know what day it is?"

She frowned, trying to think back. What had she been doing before the fire? "I … think it's Tuesday?"

She heard the man scribble something down on his notepad but didn't bother opening her eyes again, in order to avoid the offensively bright white light in the room, the beeping of the monitors around her driving her insane and making her stupid headache even worse.

"And … just tell me what year it is?"

"2017," she said and desperately wanted to turn to her side and continue sleeping. This is so dumb. Shouldn't they let me sleep it off if I got hurt in this stupid fire? She stopped for a moment, confusion coming down on her like a fuzzy and heavy blanket. Hold on a second – I called the fire department. Did they not come in time?

For the first time since she'd woken up, she fully opened her eyes now and tried to sit up – no, that was a mistake. Her right side was on fire. With a pained hiss, she slumped back into her pillows but kept her eyes open, now fully taking in her surroundings for the first time.

She was lying in a hospital bed, right in front of a window. Three people were standing around her – a woman with a pale face and dark hair, and two men in white lab coats, one of them looking like he was too old to still be working, the other man with dark hair looked about to be her age. The steady beeping she'd been annoyed by appeared to be her own heartrate.

"Can I have some water?"

"Of course, here you go," The young woman – who she thought might be a nurse – gave her a glass of water. "You must be parched."

Astrid nodded with thanks and downed the entire glass in one fell swoop. Finally.

"Um," she said hesitantly and gave the nurse the glass back. "Did … is my flat okay? I mean, I'm assuming it isn't if I'm here."

The young doctor sat down on the chair next to her, watching her intently.

"How do you mean?" he asked, his voice and face friendly.

She hesitated, wondering whether he was even aware of why she was here. "Well," she started and cleared her still sore throat. "I, uh, accidentally set my cutting board on fire last night – I think it was that. Something flammable. I, um, called the fire department but I'm not sure how soon they got there if I'm here with … what, smoke poisoning? That's why my lungs hurt?"

The two doctors exchanged a quick look and slowly but surely, a dreadful feeling of anxiety was washing over her.

The young doctor gave his older colleague a quick gesture, as if to say he'd handle this – Handle this?, she thought, growing ever and ever more alarmed.

He sighed and leaned forward; hands folded on his knees. "Listen, Astrid – there, uh, isn't really a better way of saying this, but the fire is actually not the reason you're here. You were hit by a car, a couple of days ago. Now, I know this might come as a bit of a shock to you, but, um, it's not … actually the year 2017. It's 2022."

He paused. Astrid just stared at him. For a moment, she thought he was joking. This is a joke, she thought, frantically, surely, he's joking. Her stomach dropped when she realised the look on his face was not usually what people who'd just made a really good joke looked like.

"Hold on, you're … serious?" she blurted out. "Like … actually?"

His eyes were serious. "Yes," he said hesitantly. "Actually. Sorry."

She tried sitting up again. Her side still hurt.

"So, I'm not twenty-three, I'm … twenty …" the fog in her head was getting worse, and everything was spinning again. She closed her eyes, her painless hand shooting up to her head to feel her bandaged forehead.

"Twenty-eight," the older doctor offered helpfully. She turned towards him. He had grey hair and was wearing glasses that framed his kind eyes.

She didn't know whether to thank him or throw up. Maybe she could do both. The room was spinning again. The nurse gave her another glass of water.

"Listen, I know this is a lot to take in," the young doctor said. "but, um. You're also married. I've sent him away for now, but if you'd like to see him in a bit, you can tell me and I can go get him, okay?"

Astrid heaved, the nausea and throbbing pain in her ribs and leg taking over. Somehow, she suddenly had a bowl beneath her. Pull yourself together, she thought, dry heaving and close to tears. You are not throwing up, you hear me? Get it together. She took a few deep breaths and closed her eyes again, swaying back and forth. Breathe in, breathe out. One, two, three.

Slowly, the nausea subsided, and the nurse helped her to sit up. The young doctor was still sitting by her side, his worried eyes never once leaving her face.

When he spoke again, his voice was soft and full of understanding. "I'm sure you're very tired, so we'll leave you for a bit, so you can rest. If you need anything at all, you can press this button," he gestured to a big, red button to her left, "and Freya will come to check on you, okay?"

Astrid nodded and tried to fight the tears of pain and frustration that were welling up. "Actually, can I have some painkillers?" she asked, wincing, and Dr Emrys nodded.

"Of course." He filled up her water again and shot her a soft, careful smile. "We'll speak again soon. See you later."

She nodded again and watched the two doctors leave. The nurse, who had stayed behind, took a needle from the table next to her bed and injected it into the drip Astrid realised she was connected to.

A few minutes later, she felt the blissful relief of the pain medication and finally, finally, her head and leg stopped throbbing.

She closed her eyes again and didn't even hear Freya leave.

Hiccup didn't move when Matthew sat down next to him.

"Something's gone wrong, hasn't it," Hiccup said quietly, staring at his folded hands, the absence of his wedding ring glaring.

"Not … in the way you're expecting, probably," Matt replied and rubbed his face. He sounded tired and Hiccup wondered when he'd last slept. "She's on a bunch of pain killers at the moment but we'll take her up for a brain scan in a bit. I'm waiting for Richard to page me." He sighed.

"Listen, Hic, I can't say for sure because we haven't done the MRI yet, so I don't know how extensive her brain damage is, but she's got some kind of retrograde amnesia. I've never seen it in person, but sometimes, after an accident or hit to the brain, a person will lose autobiographical and episodical memory from periods before the accident as well. Now, like I said, I don't know the extent of it. I really hope it's just that, Hic. She still knows how to speak, move, and swallow, so those are all good signs and I'm hopeful that just her episodic and autobiographical memory have been affected – so she'll still know how to do things like walking, riding bikes, that kind of stuff."

At some point, Hiccup had stopped hearing what his friend was saying. He just sat there, feeling like he was under water. Brain damage. Amnesia.

"She thinks it's 2017, Hic. In her head, she's 23 and has just set her kitchen on fire."

His head shot up, his entire body shaking now. "You mean … we haven't met yet? She doesn't … remember me?"

Matt's blue eyes were full of pity. "I don't know for sure," he said and Hiccup knew he was lying. "But it sounds like the last thing she consciously remembers is something in her kitchen catching on fire. That's why she asked about Stormfly – now, she hasn't seen you yet. It might be that she recognises you, we don't know which fire it was. And I mean … like I said, we haven't done all the tests yet, she's very exhausted and confused still. I just need some more time to give you an actual diagnosis and talk to some of my colleagues."

Hiccup's tired and heavy eyes fell back onto his hands, one clasping the ring finger of the other. She doesn't remember me. She doesn't remember me. She has no idea who I am.

He felt Matt's hand on his back and had never felt so helpless before. His years of training and working had prepared him for emergencies, but never anything like this, not ever.

"I'm … sorry, Hic. I'll do my best to find out more and let you know as soon as I can, okay?"

No reply. To his surprise, he felt his friend shake and soon heard his quiet, muffled sobs. For the first time in his career, Matthew Emrys didn't really know what to do. He'd broken upsetting news to people before, but somehow, this felt different. Perhaps it was because these were his friends, both of them. Almost more family than friends. So he just sat there, his hand still on Hiccup's back, and let him cry himself out for as long as he needed to.