Hey guys, happy April! Spring is around the corner and I'm drowning in uni work (my dissertation deadline is on the 8th of May) so here's a slightly edited chapter 9 which we've all seen before many times haha! Hope you enjoy this amended version anyways :D Also, I can't wait to be finally rid of academia come May!

Oh also, is anyone else not getting any ffnet updates sent to their email anymore? I haven't been getting emails for more than a month and was wondering if it's a sitewide problem?

Chapter 9 – Doctor Emrys

"Do you think I could go home soon?"

Matthew Emrys stopped, halfway out the door. He turned back to the woman sitting on the edge of her bed, her legs dangling off the side. Freya had asked her to get ready for a shower five minutes ago after she had finally gotten her new plaster cast fitted and the splint removed from her wrist. She'd been recovering well, considering she'd got out of emergency surgery only two weeks ago. Her wrist was healing well, just not quite enough to have her move around on crutches just yet.

Astrid looked at him now, her gaze almost pleading. "With him, I mean."

"Are you sure?" he asked as if speaking to himself.

"When do you think I can be discharged?" was the only answer he got. Matthew blinked, taken aback slightly. Astrid, he wanted to say, you can't even shower alone. Just a month ago your own husband was a complete stranger to you, do you really think you'll let him help you shower? And you're asking to go home with him? And then he thought, Well, it is still her home, too.

Instead, he said, "I'll see what we can do."

"Is that a yes?"

He paused. "That's a 'we need to be sure you're both able to deal with your injuries at home.' We're making really good progress, Astrid, but I'd like you to remember that it's not even been a month since your accident. These things take time, as frustrating as that might be."

"I see." She looked down at her pale hands that were still peppered with small bruises, and the doctor saw the gleam of their wedding bands on her finger, absentmindedly remembering Hiccup and the helpless look in his eyes whenever he exited Astrid's room.

"Doctor Emrys?"

Astrid's voice shook him out of his thoughts, and he mentally collected himself, smiling at her quizzically. The young woman almost looked nervous. "How long have we known each other?"

Ah. That was not what he had expected. Matthew stopped for a moment, then he closed the door behind him, strode through the room and sat down on the chair next to her bed. Sighing, he stripped off his coat and laid it on the side of the chair. From Doctor Emrys to Matt in a matter of seconds. He looked up, face to face with one of his best friends who only knew him as her doctor. Matthew knew it was not her fault and that he should remain professional. Should.

He sighed. "How'd you know?"

She smiled back at him, ever-so hesitantly. Her voice was quiet when she spoke, fiddling with her new splint. "I saw Hiccup message you the other day and figured we must be friends as well."

He smiled. "Well, you're right," he said, the professional part of him glad to hear her frontal lobe seemed to be intact and working perfectly.

"I'm so angry," she said suddenly, her voice shaking now. "I don't even know who I am anymore, all I've been getting have been these tiny snippets of my life. I know that everyone is trying their best and I should be grateful but-" she broke off, the tears winning, no matter how hard she was willing them to stop.

Matt let her cry herself out, then got up and reached for a box of handkerchiefs near the window, and waited for her to calm down. Smiling softly, he handed it to her.

"Your feelings are all valid, Astrid," he said, softly, leaning against the windowsill. "I want you to remember that. And if you want, we can arrange for you to have weekly appointments with a therapist here at the hospital. Would you like that?"

She nodded after a moment of hesitation. He smiled. "Okay. I'll sort something out."

"Thank you," she rasped and reached for the water on her nightstand.

"I actually met Hiccup at the hospital, a few years ago. He was doing his EMT training – I don't know if he's told you, but he used to be just a firefighter and later decided to expand to also become a paramedic. I led the introduction on trauma response and neurology basics. He kept asking me really good questions, and I was happy to answer. So, whenever I could, I'd stay behind after the seminar to answer them. And eventually, we got talking about personal things as well. He kept telling me about his girlfriend and cat, wouldn't shut up about it," he chuckled, his expression fond.

But Astrid felt something like burning jelly trickle down her throat to her chest. A girlfriend? Had Hiccup not said she had been his first kiss? Had he started dating someone else and didn't tell her?

"He told me he'd always wanted to leave Berk and never really felt at home here until he met you," the doctor continued.

And as soon as that burning feeling had come, it was gone again. Astrid blinked. Of course, she thought, embarrassed at her own falsely drawn conclusion. That was me. God. Had she been jealous of herself?

Matthew's voice swam back to her ears.

"Anyways," he continued, a faint smile on his lips still. "You and I met on New Year's Eve, just about three years ago. You threw a party at your old shared flat. That was a really good party, by the way, I don't think I ever got to say that," he added with a grin. "So there I am, it's fifteen minutes 'til midnight and I had promised to come after my shift, the one day where I wasn't doing a 24-hour rotation – which is hell, by the way – and I'd been regretting my promise to join the party. But still, a promise is a promise. Anyways, so there I am, in your already cramped flat, cramping it up even more. You and I were just talking, some regular small talk, and you left to get some more drinks, I think. Suddenly Hiccup's pulling me off to the side and I can tell he's already too drunk for his own good, but I have never heard anyone sound as sober as he did at that moment when he looked at me and, 'Matt,' he said. 'I'm gonna marry her!'

'What, right now?' I asked, still tired and running only on caffeine and ramen. 'With everyone here?' We were barely five people, I should add. That party was basically just you, Hiccup, and two other friends of yours. Still, I kind of had been having a feeling for a while about him wanting to propose to you. And I could guess that being drunk while doing that would probably not have been his first choice. So," he said. "Being the fiercely loyal friend I am, I did the only right thing: I held him back. Physically. Not my proudest moment but it was effective. Well, he might have been drunk but his mouth was still working. So now we're lying on the floor, him saying 'I need to do it!' and me just furiously yell-whispering back 'No' and I think a lot of photos were taken that night. Now you might think I'm a lunatic for throwing myself at my friend to keep him from proposing to you -" he paused. "Actually, you know what, saying it out loud actually does make me sound a bit crazy, I admit."

Astrid laughed but said nothing, silently inviting him to continue. Matthew cleared his throat.

"And that whole time, you were just looking at him like he was the best thing since sliced bread."

Astrid didn't know how to feel. She didn't know what it felt like - to love someone so much that it was just something she said, just something she had to say because she was so utterly in love.

"So, that night, he ... did not propose to you. And I think that's also not my story to tell. Anyways, it was almost 2 am, I think, when the others were starting to leave and Hiccup was seeing them off. We stayed back and began cleaning up and suddenly you looked at me and just said 'I'm gonna marry that man', with such conviction that I almost started laughing. And, well, about six months later you actually did marry him. Another story I am not the right person for."

A sudden knock at the door.

Freya returned with fresh towels, a robe and a wheelchair. Her smile widened as soon as she saw Dr Emrys and she stood in the middle of the room, blushing.

To Astrid's surprise, Matthew quickly put his coat back on and stumbled over his own words. "Freya, I - yes. Shower. Of course. Not - you, I mean, Astrid. Yes. I'll ... leave you two ... alone then. See you around." Astrid was surprised to see him blush slightly.

Freya nodded, biting her lip to hide her grin as he scrambled past her. The door shut with a soft click. The nurse helped Astrid stand up and sit down in the wheelchair; getting her clothes off was a combined effort. The entire time, Freya still had the ghost of a smile lingering on her lips - Astrid decided not to ask her about it, for fear of making the nurse uncomfortable, and second, because she was so busy being in pain that the thought of Matthew not once stumbling over his own words the entire time they had talked did not cross her mind a second time.

Hiccup returned that afternoon with fresh clothes and a hesitant skip in his step, looking hopeful. Freya smiled softly as she saw him approach, ignoring the sting of pity at the sight of his dark and sunken eyes. For a second, she thought she might say something to try and offer some comfort to him, a well-meant lie that she knew everything would work out.

"She's just settling in for a nap, so all I can give you is ten minutes," Freya informed him instead.

With the third knock this day, Astrid somehow knew that it was Hiccup. "Come in," she said and the door opened.

"Am I too late?" he asked, sitting down in the chair by the side of her bed. Astrid looked up at him, confused.

"Late for what?"

"Your shower," he replied, then registered what he'd just said and immediately started to ramble. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like - I just, I got you some fresh clothes, since I figured, maybe you'd like to have something of your own clothes, and uh, I also brought this old jumper of mine you like to wear around the house or when - when I'm not there, I'm just gonna stop talking now." He was beet-red.

Astrid looked at him. Then at the big bag that he'd set down on the floor. Oh. "Thanks," she smiled. "And yeah, you are. I'll change later – the clothes Freya gave me are a bit scratchy."

Hiccup opened his mouth but she cut him off. Something in her just needed to get this out and over with, skip the pleasantries.

"I've been thinking," she started, then broke off and looked down at their rings on her black and blue hands. They looked frail now, thin.

"When I'm discharged, I want to go home. With you."

Home. It tasted strange on her tongue and sounded even stranger with her voice, Astrid thought. For as long as she could remember that word did not have any importance nor meaning attached to it; her first few months in Berk had been cold and lonely, even after Ruffnut had moved as well. And she saw only now, at this moment, looking at the man the woman she did not remember had married three years ago, that she wanted it to. She wanted home to have a meaning. She wanted to remember the meaning.

Because, right now, she had a feeling she'd found it about five years ago.