Author's note: Uploaded right before my flight to Dublin. Enjoy!

The Morning After

Hiccup was awakened by bright orange rays of light as they splashed through the window shutter and into his eyes. He winced and turned his face away, confused. The morning sun never shone in on him like that—why would it now?

The answer hit him like a blacksmith's hammer. The bed. He had a new bed, a bigger one, placed against a different wall at the request of the individual now sleeping next to him—the sleeping person whose small, perfect breasts were now opposite his gaze.

He could still taste the previous night's mead on his tongue. She had made him drink it. Astrid. He was married to Astrid. He was married to Astrid. Astrid was married to him.

Oh, man.

Up on the roof outside, Terrible Terrors started to warble.

Astrid made a small sound in her throat but didn't move. Hiccup scooted away slightly so he could look at her more completely, careful not to jostle and wake her. He smiled to himself as he noticed the thin line of dried saliva snaking from her mouth to the pillow.

Thor only knew she needed the sleep. In the weeks preceding the wedding, instead of turning into the proverbial glowing bride-to-be, she had grown pale and haggard. Her reaction to his recent slip on the ice had been almost disturbing in its intensity; she was on the other side of the village at the time of the accident, only finding out about it a couple of hours afterward when Hoark mentioned it to her in passing. She had burst in on Hiccup at home as he lay in bed, his ribs tightly wrapped, barely able to breathe from the pain—she berated his carelessness until she was hoarse, then burst into tears. At that point he had come within a hair's breadth of calling the whole thing off, moving it back to the upcoming spring season that had been their initial choice for their nuptials. The only thing that had held him back was the fear of what she'd do to him if he suggested a postponement, since by then she'd spent hours and hours preparing her chest of bridal clothes and supplies.

Well, that wasn't the only thing that had held him back. There was also the fact that they were having an increasingly hard time keeping their hands off each other. After the fight with Drago Bludvist (the terror of those events still visited him nightly, as did the horrendous crushing survivor's guilt), Astrid's typically sweet caresses had acquired a worried, desperate tone; she reached for him as though every kiss might be their last. As much as he wanted her (and gods, he wanted her, he'd been dreaming about her since he was twelve), he'd eventually begun to push her hands away as they searched his body: he was certain that if her soft fingers reached their destination, he'd give in and they'd find themselves expecting before you could say Happy Snoggletog, Mom, we have a surprise for you.

He suppressed a shudder of panic at the thought of the two of them becoming parents. Sure, he wanted kids—eventually—and he'd indulged himself on occasion in imagining what a child of theirs might look like. (Would it have his green eyes? Or Astrid's blond hair?) But he couldn't avoid the discomfort of knowing that he suffered from a near-laughable lack of appropriate parenting role models. There was Stoick, with whom nearly every conversation had been either stilted and uncomfortable or dangerously ineffective, and Valka, whom he barely knew and (though he might never be able to say it to her face) hadn't quite forgiven for devoting herself completely to her dragon colony when just a few hours' flight could have reunited them.

And now that they were together again, it was like she'd suddenly decided she was a real mother after all—as though making up for lost time, she peppered him with questions about his life and was constantly touching him: his hair, his arm, his cheek. In the initial shock of finding out she was alive, he had been only too glad to be close to her, ecstatic to find out the source of his affinity for dragons and desperate for her approval and acceptance. But it was getting to be a bit much. Between her attention and Astrid's paranoia, he sometimes felt like just jumping on Toothless and disappearing into the archipelago for a few months.

But he couldn't. If that had ever been an option, it surely wasn't anymore. He sighed as he realized his life would never, ever, be like it was before. Even if he did try to get away, Stormfly could track him down, and though his physical prowess had increased with his long-awaited growth spurt, he knew from sparring with Astrid that she could probably still take him down and haul him back to Berk if she were so inclined.

Not that he would have the heart to put up much of a fight, anyway. He'd waited years for this girl. First had come the dawning awareness of the difference in their respective genders, as she grew four inches, changed her hair from pigtails to a long single braid and developed a decidedly intriguing swing in her hips as she walked. And she hadn't been cruel to him like the twins and Snotlout; her attitude toward him was born more from her relentless quest for perfection than inherent meanness. He had made awkward overture after awkward overture, heart squeezing painfully at each uncomprehending rejection but powerless not to try again the next time he saw her fierce, round, pretty face. He had been just about on the verge of giving up, preparing himself to fake happiness at her engagement to some boy with proper Viking qualities, when the gods had decided to smile in his direction, bestowing upon him both Toothless's friendship and Astrid's affection over the course just of a few short weeks. Some days he could still hardly believe it was all real.

He glanced over at his prosthetic foot, which was leaning against the bedstand. Well. Perhaps the word bargain fit the situation better than gift.

Not that he would change anything, though, because Astrid was here and she loved him and they were married and she was wearing a night shift of such fine material he could almost see through it. He thought again of the children they might have, his groin tightening as he pictured how her belly would swell as she carried their first son or daughter. He hoped she would be okay with naming it something a little more dignified than Hiccup.

He stroked her temple gently with the back of his fingers, his stomach fluttering in anticipation as she opened her eyes and graced him with a sleepy, delighted smile.

"Morning, milady," he said; and he bent his head down to hers, and kissed her lips.