I cannot adequately put in to words how much co-writers and I enjoyed the absolute explosion of a response to last chapter, and we love you all.

Chapter warning: contains non-explicit discussion of abortion. Here we're pro choice, so while I respect other people might have different opinions, please keep anti-abortion rants out of my review section :)

-HTTYD-

"H, you're being a bit obvious."

Eret was one to talk, Hiccup groused to himself as he tore his eyes off of Astrid, heart doing some kind of uncomfortable twitching in his chest as anxiety settled in his stomach, ruining any chance he had of finishing his burger. Eret would probably finish it.

"Just... miss her."

If they weren't out in public, he knew Eret would have hugged him close and kissed his hair, stroked Hiccup's back until he felt the tension melt from his twins frame. But they were outside, and people would have seen. Eret settled for what he could get away with, a one armed squeeze around the shoulders and that look that Hiccup knew meant if we were alone.

"I miss her too."

Shoving his half-eaten food at Eret, Hiccup had one source of comfort - Astrid looked as though she was regaining the weight he'd worried about her losing before. She looked healthy. Was going to class and the gym, and he saw her laugh at something Heather said. She didn't see them, but given how steadfastly she'd been avoiding them, before and after Heather's birthday party where those few hours were perfect, all three of them together again...

Hiccup shook off those thoughts and tried to wash the lump in his throat down with cola.

"I'm going home."

"Wait up" Eret tossed his burger wrapper in the bin "I'm coming too. Fresh air and fast food was your plan, remember?"

Eret was right, but that had been before he had to watch Astrid... going on without them. He didn't understand how she could, how she wasn't changed by all the things that had happened between them. Though, really, Hiccup supposed it was their own fault for laying down the rules early on. Just sex. Just physical. There couldn't be feelings involved.

How had they been stupid enough to think that would work? Yearning after Astrid for years and finally getting to be with her in all the ways he'd dreamed... yeah, totally not going to develop feelings.

Hiccup heaved a great sigh as they walked. Eret threw him a curious look, but didn't ask.

He knew Eret felt the same way he did, long past caring that it was supposedly sick to fall in love with their own blood. They'd always said their own relationship was just... something they did. Falling for Astrid had made them admit it was far more than that, and probably always had been. And Hiccup wasn't afraid there - he knew he'd always have Eret.

But they both wanted Astrid too.

As soon as their front door closed behind them, the pretence fell away and Hiccup immediately sought his brothers hold. Eret pulled them to the sofa, broad arms wrapped around Hiccup as he burrowed into Eret's chest, listening to the steady thrum of his heart beating beneath his ear.

After a few minutes grounding himself, Hiccup managed to push himself into a semi-seated position, still leaning heavily on Eret.

"She... she can't avoid us forever, right?"

"I... no, guess not. I mean, end of the year we'll all be going back to mom and dads."

It wasn't home anymore. It wasn't where they'd spent so many nights entangled with Astrid, making her laugh and moan and smile. He'd felt it before, but that night where they got rid of their parents and had Astrid pressed so tightly between them Hiccup never wanted to let go... it seemed to have ruined everything. He wished he could go back, change it, go back to when Astrid would actually look at them.

Hiccup still didn't really understand the thing after Heather's birthday party. Had Astrid just wanted to get laid, used them and left? He'd never have considered her capable of treating them so disposably, but then neither twin had put up any resistance or asked her to stay. And a month later, she was still avoiding them just like before.

"Well, she ignored us all the way through new years and actually managed quite well to ignore us in the car with mom and dad. Mom was pretty suspicious though."

At least if Astrid never wanted anything to do with them again, there was little risk of their year-long... thing with her being discovered by their parents. The twins were pretty cocky about never getting caught through all the years they'd been at it, but then they shared a bedroom and so it had been easy to hide. Astrid had been much more wary, and probably sensibly so.

"Yeah... I have an idea, but it might be a bit much."

Hiccup straightened up properly, turning to Eret.

"I'm listening."

"Well, our birthdays in like, six weeks" Hiccup was physically pained by the prospect of Astrid still not speaking to them by then "we could invite mom and dad up here. Astrid can't avoid them forever, not without making them really really confused and worried."

"Yeah. We're meant to go down there ourselves but Astrid can get out of that a lot easier."

There was very little chance Astrid was going to voluntarily sit in the car with the twins for the whole ride back where they would be able to talk to her with nobody overhearing, they both knew that.

"Yeah, a lot harder to refuse to see mom and dad if they're right here."

Hiccup nodded eagerly in agreement with Eret's idea. Gods, just to see her again, to have the chance to talk to her...

"Alright, I'll bring it up with mom next time she calls."

She was still their sister, and Hiccup felt like they were failing her. They were meant to take care of her, protect her. Astrid might not need that, but that didn't make Hiccup feel less guilty for allowing the circumstances that ended in them essentially being kicked out of her life. Hel, she even used her knowledge of Eret's schedule to avoid seeing him at the gym, even though they knew she'd started going back from Eret's fellow gym-bunny friends seeing her there. Which, Hiccup supposed, made her visible weight gain more reassuring. She must be eating better if she was gaining and exercising, right?

Sighing, Hiccup slumped back against the sofa cushions. Eret crawled over and flopped on top of him, heavy and uncomfortable and yet ridiculously comforting all the same.

"We'll figure it out H. She can't avoid us forever."

Hiccup nodded. Though, given how well he knew Astrid, he was pretty sure she'd give it her best shot.

It was a testament, Astrid felt, to just how completely thrown the realisation she was pregnant had made her, when she left the damned positive test in the sink and went to lie on her bed.

Which was how Heather found it.

"You're pregnant!?"

Astrid blinked, sitting up on her bed; she'd sort of noticed Heather coming in, since she had her own key to the door to save Astrid even getting out of bed on her really bad days, heard her knocking about in the kitchen to make tea. Hadn't realised she was going into the bathroom until that was yelled out at her.

"Let the whole damned floor know why don't you?"

Heather had the grace to look apologetic, and her voice was quieter when she spoke again.

"Sorry. But... are you?"

Astrid nodded reluctantly, trying not to jostle herself when her stomach had finally settled a little.

"Wow. Ok. So... who? When? You've been pretty antisocial lately."

Sighing, Astrid let her head drop into her hands. Heather would get it out of her one way or the other, either through persistence or guesswork.

"I don't know. Kinda between two people. And about a month, I think."

Well, she knew. There was only one real date. Sure, Astrid guessed she could have gotten pregnant from the whole yuletide threesome thing, but she'd been taking her pill pretty consistently back then and she was pretty sure she'd gotten her period since then too. Plus, the exhaustion and nausea were new.

"A month and two- oh! You said nothing happened!"

"I lied. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it."

She didn't want anyone to know. Hoped it would fade away and be forgotten.

Apparently, her uterus had had other plans.

Heather sat on the end of her bed, looking Astrid over.

"Well, that explains a lot about the last few weeks actually."

"Like what?"

"Tired. Sick. Hungry."

Astrid groaned as her stomach threatened to turn over again, sucking in a few deep breaths before giving up and rushing to the bathroom. She made it in time, retching and heaving before her body went half-limp, sweaty and aching, dizzy.

Heather cleaned up her clammy face and gave her water, helped Astrid stumble up to sit on the closed toilet lid.

"So, what are you gonna do?"

"I... I don't know."

Sense said she should terminate it, hide it and never let anybody find out. But Astrid struggled with that idea. Oh, the prospect of being pregnant and someone noticing and then having a baby scared the life out of her, and Astrid had always been adamant if she got pregnant despite being on birth control while at university, she'd get an abortion. She wasn't ready, was in no place for that sort of complication in her life.

But she hadn't expected the child to be sired her brothers back then, and she hadn't been taking her contraception properly. An accident from a one night stand was one thing, but she was carrying something that was part Hiccup or Eret, and that mattered more than she'd thought it would.

"Are you going to tell them?"

"I have no idea. Gods, this is a mess."

She buried her face in her hands, groaning.

"So, just over four weeks along now, right?"

Heather seemed to slip over in to nerd mode - she was studying biology as part of her course, so it made sense.

"I guess so. You're meant to count from your last period but I know when it had to have happened, and my period was a week or two before then so that would be impossible."

"Which means its a couple of months before you can get any sort of meaningful paternity test done. And that's a little more difficult, cus they're brothers so you would ideally need both of them to take the test, which would be a fun conversation I'm sure."

Astrid went cold all over at the thought, knowing that when paternity tests were done, they tested the mothers DNA too. The test would show the baby had parents who shared a parent, surely? Gods, how could she possibly explain that? It wasn't like they looked much alike, save for Valka's freckles littering all of their skin. so maybe she could pass it off as not knowing? If she even decided to. It was one of them, and she wasn't sure it mattered which.

Except... Eret was pretty much a double of their dad, except much more heavy-built. What if the baby had Sami features? There'd be no excuse for those then, not when Eret Sr was not Astrid's biological father.

"I need to lie down."

Astrid stood, stretching her arms over her head to try and ease the aches of being hunched over the toilet seat multiple times that day already. Morning sickness wasn't fun.

"Astrid?"

"Yeah?"

She dropped her arms, but Heather was reaching over to her, tugging the fabric of her t-shirt back up to expose...

fuck.

"What's that?"

-HTTYD-

Should me and co-writers take bets on whether or not this chapter causes more or less yelling than last chapter?