Personal Mail

Hiccup

Hiccup groaned to himself as he heard her words and dropped his head in defeat. Not more of this personal mail again! Normally, Astrid went through his mail as it was her job as his assistant, but lately, he'd gotten more and more mail with the addition personal or private and she'd refrained from opening those. He hadn't seen the point of this at first since their working relationship was so far from the usual and there was nothing he would keep from her anyway. He had gotten mail like that earlier as well and those had mostly been requests to participate in certain projects or others without it being an official offer.

But these letters were different, he had to admit and he understood why Astrid wouldn't want to open them. Hel, he didn't want to open them, either! There were still the project requests and lately there were congratulating notes for their engagement by business partners as well but those letters could easily be identified at first glance and sadly didn't make the entirety of this personal mail. A not all that small part of these letters contained love letters, salacious offers, photographies that could only be called pornographic and other stuff like that. He would have liked nothing more that to dump the whole stack into the trash bin but he understood that he had to take a look at least… For every now and then there were also hate letters and intimidation. He'd even gotten threats to his life a few times and occasionally there were those how threatened to harm Astrid as well. And although most of those were probably just empty boasting he wanted them to be investigated thoroughly nonetheless.

With a sigh, he sat down at his desk and, after taking a big sip of his coffee, got back to work. There was a lot left to do, the past two weeks had been demanding. It was good to have Fishlegs and Heather back again, as he and Astrid had agreed to take over their work as well for the duration of their honeymoon. This had left them with barely any time left at all, though, and while Astrid had worked practically triple shifts to get everything done he himself had been far lazier and had neglected his own projects in favor of Fishlegs'. She really deserved this day off even though she'd chosen to come here anyway to chat with Heather. But then, she had another appointment later as well.

He smiled to himself at her eagerness. She could use this day to relax or to get back on her missed training but instead, she'd wanted to start planning. They were at one with not wanting to delay their wedding unnecessarily but apparently, she wanted to finish the arrangements at record speed.

His thoughts kept swirling around this topic, though, distracting him effectively from his work. He didn't want their wedding to be that big of an event really and knowing Astrid she probably thought the same. He suspected, however, that they wouldn't get away with a small wedding that easily… Valka would make sure of that, he feared. His brows furrowed at the thought of his mother. After she'd learned of their engagement a day belated, she'd kind of started to make plans of her own, suggested locations and arrangements suitable for an occasion like this. Suitable in her opinion, at least. If it was up to her, their wedding would be the event of the year with hundreds of guests. Well, she was in for a disappointment then, but this really was just the latest point on a long list of her strange expectations, really…

Ever since Valka had announced him to be her heir as CEO, dragging him into publicity thereby, the yellow press had chosen him as their defenseless victim. Or they had fallen in love with him, as Astrid called it… It had been disturbing in the beginning to read a new article about himself every other week, to have gossip reporters lurking in front of their apartment building and to see pictures of him, alone or with Astrid, every now and then on the front page of one magazine or other. But after a month or so especially the stream of reporters had abated and their life had regained some normalcy at least. Astrid had suggested that probably the dragon had interfered, making sure her son would not be overly bothered and maybe she was right there. It was just the type of kind-of-caring gesture this powerful woman was capable of, acting out of the background instead of interfering personally.

But that didn't change the fact that Hiccup had become some kind of involuntary celebrity and he wasn't enjoying this attention. If it would have been up to him he would have kept working in the small office he'd shared with Fishlegs, being just another creative engineer among the rest of them on floor 50. And although he liked the freedom of choosing his own projects and working with Astrid as well, he was well aware of the fact that Valka was trying to mold him into a shape he just didn't fit in.

There was no point in trying to work right now, really. The happy thoughts of their engagement and the unnerving ones about practically everything else kept distracting him and with a grunt, he shut down the files on his tablet. He needed something else to occupy his thoughts, something less demanding, something…

Ah, who am I kidding? he mentally berated himself. He needed Astrid! His safe haven, his grounded anchor, his light in the darkness. Two years into their relationship hadn't been enough to soothe away his fears of being alone, of losing her again. She was all that kept the craziness and darkness of this world at bay. These two weeks really had been bad, with entirely too little time for each other, especially considering their new status. He wanted, needed her to be around, needed her smile to lighten his life. Looking up at the door, he considered going back to the break room, to endure their teasing just to be near her. Man, you're pathetic! He thought, and not for the first time in his life.

Exasperated at himself, he reached for the messy stack of envelopes placed at the edge of his desk and began to sort through them. Undemanding and able to occupy his mind in other ways, the perfect work for now, although not a pleasant one, really. There were those envelopes which had the logo or name of some company or other printed on the cover or written inside the envelope window. Those were safe letters and he opened them first. As expected they held mostly project requests, mainly for the Pegleg and even the inquiry whether he intended to build something similar for arms and hands as well. He rolled his eyes at this a little. Of course, that was only the logic consequence and Legs and he were long since engaged in this project.

There were two ornated envelopes, too, and those were fairly safe as well, being congratulations obviously. One of them made him grin, though. It came from one of the college tutors he'd worked with and had only recently talked to again as well, at the wedding. Aside from congratulating him, though, he also reprimanded him for not telling him of the engagement back then as well. He'd left fairly early and obviously had read this dreadful article as well, because he also berated him for his inappropriate timing and for crashing the wedding. Hiccup groaned at this. There hadn't been anything like crashing the wedding, dammit! And even if then it would have been Heather's fault, really, he thought with a pout.

She had known he wanted to propose to Astrid after all and although she'd also known it would be their anniversary, she had chosen that day as their wedding day nonetheless. Her fault entirely! And he was pretty sure no one would have noticed anything that day anyway if Heather hadn't started squealing the moment they returned to the ballroom and had come running toward them, dress flapping, to inspect the ring on Astrid's finger. Again, her fault entirely…

If it would have been up to him they would have kept their secret for a few days, would have savored it just between the two of them before telling their friends and fami-

Hiccup grimaced at his own thoughts. Well, there was no family to tell, really. Valka was the only blood relation left to either of them and even she wasn't much of family to speak of. There had been his aunt, his father's and Uncle Gobber's sister, but she had never shown him much kindness and then she'd died in the same accident, that had caused Uncle Gobber's and Astrid's parent's death. And her husband, his son by his former marriage and the whole Jorgenson Clan had been even worse. No, they really had no family to care about. Not, until they'd build one of their own, that was...

A small smile crept over his face at this thought. Astrid still was on the Pill as far as he knew, though when and if she'd discontinue was up to her. They'd talked about this already, about whether and when they'd want to become parents. Hiccup himself had never thought much about becoming a father before, with never having experienced how it was to have real parents himself. Gobber had been a great replacement but that still wasn't the same. But being with Astrid had stirred up those ideas, images of her with a bump, eyes shining with love, and of holding a sleeping child of theirs in his arms. The mere thoughts had been overwhelming and so he'd raised this topic a few months ago. She'd been surprised that much had been obvious, though whether that was in a good or a bad way, she'd hidden from him well and he'd dropped the topic again.

A few days later, she'd brought it up again herself, though, but with some uneasiness to be sure. She'd said, that she had never thought about it all that much before, that she couldn't see herself as a mother right now and had asked him to be patient as she needed more time to think about it. "Of course!" he'd agreed. There was no rush, after all. And after he'd explained that he'd mentioned the topic not out of a current interest but rather in general, she'd relaxed immediately.

In the end, they agreed on Astrid to be the one to decide the right time. It was her body after all. And in their current situation, there was no good or bad timing, really. So Astrid would discontinue the Pill when she was ready. Even whether she'd tell him or not when she did was up to her in the end. He didn't want to put any pressure on her. He just wanted her to be happy.

Appeased and mentally strengthened by these thoughts, he turned toward the remaining three envelopes. The first one was especially bad, even the envelope was pink and perfumed with a strawberry scent. Surely, he could dump that one directly, right? He didn't want to read another love letter by any woman or girl who didn't even knew him. But he dutifully opened it nonetheless and scanned the content quickly. As expected it was a love letter and a particularly embarrassing one, too. Without a second thought, he dumped it into the trash bin and turned toward the second envelope. It was rather nondescript and businesslike in comparison, name and address printed on the envelope by machine and after he opened it he relaxed slightly. It was just another request for the Pegleg, though not by any company but by a young couple who asked for one for their daughter. Hiccup put that one aside for further research. They had a program for those in need after all. It wasn't up to him, but maybe they were lucky. He hoped so.

The third letter was a strange one, though. It had neither stamp nor postmark on it and instead of an address, there was only one line of words written on the front in a simple handwriting.

Personal! For the attention of Mr. Hiccup Haddock

That was all. It was not uncommon for these personal letters to be thrown into the mailbox at the entrance down below directly but then those normally weren't this formal. With a frown, he opened the envelope and when he pulled out the letter inside, two smaller pieces of paper fell out and onto the desk. He picked them up and when he realized those were photographies was almost afraid. He had seen his share of unexpected photos by now… But these were harmless. The first one showed a girl of maybe 10 years with straight blond hair pulled into a ponytail and gray-blue wide awake eyes. He looked at it, puzzled, but shrugged and inspected the second photo. It took him a moment to realize that this one showed himself! Gods, this had to be years old, taken in another life, a strangely free and unhappy one. His fingers trembled as his eyes went to the girl, he held in his arms on this picture. She had the same straight blond hair as the girl on the other picture and although one couldn't see it on this photo, he remembered her light blue eyes all too well.

Exhaling unsteadily, he stared at these two pictures. His quick mind could only come up with one single explanation why anyone would send him these two photos, nothing else would make any sense. But that wasn't possible! It wasn't! Was it..? He reached for the letter he'd dropped and while he began to read, heart pounding rapidly, his eye grew wider and wider.

Duh-duh-duh...