7/7/10

A/N: Love the awesome reviews, thank you so much! Backroads' review was quite timely; yes she has been very patient with him, hasn't she *evil grin* And to answer Avatarmirai's question, unless I get a major inspiration burst soon, there's going to be two more chapters, so nothing terribly epic plotwise, sorry :( But in the meantime I get to play with poor Hiccup just a little while longer.

Enjoy!


"Hold on."

"To what?"

"Me."

"Er…"

With a sigh of exasperation Astrid reached back and seized his arms, pulling them around her waist. Hiccup gulped audibly. He could smell something flowery and sweet coming off her hair. "Just hang on. She's not nearly as wild as Toothless, but it's easy to slip off." With a click of her tongue, the blue dragon took several steps forward and with a whoosh of its wings, lifted gently off the ground.

Hiccup looked down anxiously as the ground fell away. The training ring grew smaller and smaller behind them, the houses became indistinguishable, and all of Berk swiftly became a miniature of itself. They flew west, towards the wild part of the island. The bird-like dragon bounced along just above the treetops with each energetic wing flap. Hiccup's empty stomach flipped unpleasantly and he pressed his face against Astrid's back. With his heart pounding in his ears he was only partially aware of how painfully close he was to the object of his fantasies since, well since he had started having fantasies, but enough of him was aware that he became increasingly uncomfortable. As far as bad ideas went, this one was turning out to be nearly as bad as the time he'd almost chased a Gronckle off a cliff.

He peeked over her shoulder just long enough to see the dragon barely miss a rocky outcropping as it banked past a mountain face. "Astrid! Whoa, whoa! Are you sure this thing can fly?"

"Of course!" she yelled over her shoulder. "Just take it easy and enjoy the ride."

"I am most definitely not enjoying this!"

"Give it a chance; you loved flying before, even when Toothless almost killed us both."

"I don't care what happened before; I really don't like this, and want down now!"

"Fine," she grumbled. They'd made it to the southwest side of the island, and she landed on a small beach cove. She helped him down, and tried to steady him when his feet were about to give way, but he pushed aside her hand and turned away, dropping on the ground and pulling his knees up. From the corner of his eye, he saw her hesitantly sit down beside him with a sigh.

"What happened after?" he asked.

"After what?" she asked peevishly.

"My final exam?"

"Oh," she said in a small voice and stared at the lapping waves for a moment. He could feel her reluctance to start. Finally she said in weak voice, "Toothless wouldn't leave your side. You tried, but he wouldn't."

Hiccup frowned. "My father was there?"

She nodded. "Everyone was."

Hiccup closed his eyes and tried to imagine a Night Fury landing in the middle of the village. "How bad was it?"

"Your father charged him, they fought, and I thought – no I knew – Toothless was going to kill him. But you called him off. You made him stop." She looked at him and he saw her eyes glisten with tears that hadn't fallen yet. "They took him," she whispered. Then she laughed harshly and made an attempt to swipe her eye with the back of her hand casually.

"My dad? He must have been pretty mad, right?"

"I don't know exactly what happened, Hiccup," she said quietly.

"Tell me what you do know."

"By the time I heard the news they were already preparing the ships. You had told him about the nest…"

"Nest? I told him about the dragon's nest?"

"Yes. W-you had found it during a flight. And your dad said Toothless would lead them there again. So they loaded him onto the ship, in chains." She closed her eyes and rocked back and forth. "We were told that you were disowned. You were to be exiled from the village."

Hiccup laughed without humor. Everything he'd done, every mistake, every accident - he'd never imagined his father ever disowning him. "Well that really is a failure of epic proportions, isn't it? And here I thought I'd never amount to anything."

Having gotten past the worst of it, though, Astrid continued on more excitedly. "But you didn't let that stop you. You were going to fly out there to help Toothless, and try to prevent them from finding that thing, that dragon. And we went with you. We followed you," she said with a smile. "You were a leader that day." Hiccup snorted and she jabbed him roughly with her elbow. "You were. When we got there, the dragon was out, people were scattered and frightened, ships were on fire. You knew what we needed to do. And when you finally got Toothless you…well, you…" She stopped and stared down at her hands. "Hiccup, when I tell you that you were a hero, I'm not being flattering. I want to make very clear to you that you were brave and strong, and I've never been more proud to know anyone."

Then she leaned over and kissed him. Hiccup's eyes went wide and he felt frozen as her mouth covered his. He couldn't even track the number of emotions firing in his brain and the shear overload of it caused him to push away from her with a startled cry, backpedaling with his hands and feet like a strange crab, his face a look of shock and horror.

This was the last straw. Astrid stood up with the stomp of her feet. "Argh! I have been patient, I have been supportive, and I just don't know what else to do with you. I really wish you'd get your blasted memories back already."

"Why?" he asked sharply in response to her sudden anger while regaining his feet.

"Why wouldn't you want to, Hiccup?"

"That has nothing to do with it. Why do you care so much?"

"Because I…I really…"

"What? You've been pushing me all day. Why will it be so terrible for you if I never remember?"

"Because I love you! All right? Gods damn it! This is not the way I wanted to have this conversation." She folded her arms. "Why are you acting like this?" she asked. "Do I repulse you all of a sudden?"

"Repulse, no; confuse, yes. Because what I do remember very clearly is how you've never given me the time of day before, I wasn't good enough for you. But now I'm a great 'hero' you can't keep your hands off me. I guess I never realized how shallow you were." Hiccup regretted the words almost as soon as they were out of his mouth, but he could barely think straight: the confusion of the day plus his growing discomfort being around her and long buried childhood resentments were making him irritable and defensive.

She whirled on him, her blonde braid whipping around hard enough to bounce of her cheek. "Did you just call me shallow?" Her eyes narrowed at him dangerously, one fist clenched.

Hiccup swallowed, but found he couldn't stop. "Yeah, I did. When did you ever talk to me or even look at me like a human being? When did you ever see anything but a failure?"

"When did you ever act like anything but a failure?" she yelled at him, brandishing her arm as if she had her axe in it. "We were fighting for our lives and you spent all your time clowning around, like everything was a huge joke!"

"Clowning around?" he repeated with a harsh laugh. "But you're more than happy to hang around with Snotlout and Ruff and Tuff. Everything's a joke to them. They could put on their own show!"

She thrust her finger at his chest. "They never almost got anyone killed! They pulled their weight when the time came."

"And I didn't?"

"Gods, no! You were the worst liability this village has ever seen!" The words stung him worse than if she'd slapped him across the face.

"But now it's different? I-I changed so much?"

"Yes!"

"And you love me?"

"Yes!"

"So now I'm worthy of you?"

"Yes! No! I…Stop putting words in my mouth!" Her fist shot out and landed hard on his shoulder, causing him to fall back several steps. "Hiccup," she immediately gasped remorsefully. She tried to reach for him but he backed away further. "I've never said you weren't worthy of me." Her face contorted in a strange mix of sadness and disgust.

"You didn't have to," he said, rubbing his shoulder, all the fight had drained out of him, leaving emptiness. "The Hiccup you're looking for, he's not here, and he may never be here again. I used to dream about impressing you enough to get you to notice me, but now I don't think I want to be the guy that you notice anymore. You can just go back to ignoring me. It'll make everything a lot easier." He started walking in the direction of the village.

"Hiccup!" she yelled shrilly after him. "You're not just going to walk back to the village by yourself!"

"Yep," he called over his shoulder.

After several more steps he heard her voice echo around him. "You're not the only one who changed, you know!"

"No," he muttered to himself. "I'm the only one who hasn't changed."


Astrid's Nadder landed just outside the Haddock home with a screech of annoyance that probably had something to do with how tight she was holding the reins. Toothless was lying patiently in the dooryard and raised his head at Astrid as she jumped to the ground. The door opened and Chief Stoick stepped out. Astrid nodded to him curtly, and then turned to address to the Night Fury.

"Your stubborn, idiotic, bullheaded rider is attempting to walk back from the southwest cove. Alone. If he doesn't succumb to the elements, I imagine he'd make it back here by this time next week at the rate he's going. So you may want to go get him." Toothless stood and looked at her closely as if trying to decipher her words. She pointed westward. "Hiccup. Go. Now." That got the message across, and the black dragon paused just a moment to clutch the bound riding gear in his mouth before slipping out of the village and racing into the forest like a giant winged mink.

Still ignoring the chief, Astrid remounted her dragon, but he caught her arm before she could take off. "What's going on?"

She wouldn't look at him. Astrid knew that if she looked into the face of Hiccup's father that the tears she'd been holding back with considerable will would finally break through. Keeping her eyes steadily on Baby's wing, she said, "I-I don't know. He's angry. Maybe it is just me, or maybe it's something else, but I can't help anymore. I'm sorry." Lightly kicking the Nadder, she flew back to the arena.


A/N If anyone is wondering about my characterizations of Astrid, I'm going by the thoughts/feelings that I wrote in "All of Him". Not that anyone needs to read it, but it might help you understand where she's coming from (and it's a pretty good read, if I do say so myself ;) ).