Oh, tell me what you want,
What you really really want.

Scowling, Astrid hit ignore on her phone for the fifth time in ten minutes.

Only the quiet mirth of Alec, who kept grinning and chuckling at Astrid, and the clink of silverware, broke the uncomfortable silence at the Hofferson family table. She shot her brother a death glare, and then flashed her mother an apologetic smile.

"Sorry. It won't happen again."

"Maybe you should put it on silent so we don't have to hear that stupid song again," suggested Sydney, and Astrid turned the death glare her sister's way.

"So what is everyone thankful for this year?" asked their father, louder than necessary. He was not a fan of domestic conflict—he'd even gotten upset earlier that day when Alec and Astrid had a screaming match over a bad play in their football game.

Their mother cast a carefully composed matronly smile down the table. "I'm thankful that we're all together for the holiday."

"I'm thankful for Astrid's terrible taste in music," Alec snickered, and she sharpened her glare.

"Don't talk about the Spice Girls, Alec, you were barely alive then."

Oh, tell me what you want—

Syd and Alec broke out laughing again, as Astrid struggled to pull her phone out of her pocket. Hiccup calling. Not that she needed the hint, it didn't play "Wannabe" for anyone else, though she was starting to regret the inside joke. She silenced it but didn't hang up, and looked to her parents.

"I'm sorry, I think I should take this, just to make sure everything's…"

A wary glance passed between them. "Who is it, Astrid?" her dad asked.

"Just—I'll explain in a minute, please just keep eating." And she slid from her chair, willing herself to ignore the clear disapproval on her mother's face.

She hit the accept call button in the family room and then slipped out on to the tiny balcony, just big enough for one folding chair, where she sat. Their apartment, being a subdivision, was sort of bizarrely laid out, with the laundry and storage on the first floor, and the real living spaces on the second and third.

"Oh, thank god," was the first thing he said. Through her worry, she grinned at the sound of his voice.

"Hi, babe, what's up?" Astrid heard him laugh, but not happily. Below her in the street, cars shot by, and a November night in Los Angeles was like a late summer one in New York, so the light breeze felt good on her skin.

"My parents are getting remarried."

Oh. Shit. Astrid leaned over, head in her hands. Fucking Dr. Larama, and the fucking Sofa King.

"Wow."

"Yeah, yeah, wow."

"Are you freaking out?" A pointless question, really, when his voice sounded so strained on the other end of the line, and he'd called her six times until she picked up, and she knew what a longstanding fear this had been for him. She remembered what he'd said all those months ago in his mother's apartment, that if his parents married again, he'd never get married himself—it seemed like such a waste, when he'd be… good at that.

"I think I'm dying," he croaked. "Somebody up there hates me."

"I'm so sorry, Hiccup."

"I just can't believe this, they haven't even been dating for a year and they give me this whole talk about how it has to work this time!" Astrid's chest ached; she could almost hear him pacing on the other end of the line. "It's so stupid, it's just going to end again, and they're going to get divorced again—"

"Okay, just take a deep breath, babe." He was on the edge of a panic attack and she started flipping through her catalogue of remedies as he made a horrible noise, a laugh-sob. "Is Toothless around? Where are you?"

"I don't—I'm just walking around, I left the apartment."

"Okay. That's okay."

"It's really fucking cold. God, I'm an idiot."

"You're not an idiot," she said firmly. "Stop walking for a second. Breathe with me. In," she inhaled and listened until she heard a similar sound through the phone. "Out." They exhaled together. Hiccup gave a tiny sigh.

"This is incredible," he said, still distressed but calmer now. "What if they split up again? I'm still recovering from the last time."

She tried not to imagine the scenario too vividly—it was hard enough to hear him as upset as he was right now. "If they split up again… you'll be out of school or almost out, probably. You won't have to be there for it. If they're being unreasonable, then you don't have to answer their phone calls."

"But they're my parents," he groaned.

"If your family doesn't respect you, then you owe them nothing. You don't owe anything to anyone who makes you feel like this." She had learned that lesson the hard way, but she knew it by heart now. "I'll be your family. Fish can be your family. You always have family."

A long pause from Hiccup. "There's another thing. My mom knew we were going out, I have no idea how, she like—is she spying on me, it's so—"

"I told her." Astrid sunk down into the chair, suddenly chilly.

"What?" Hiccup sounded alarmed. "You mean in office hours, or something?"

"Yeah."

"So—I'm sorry, what…"

"She asked." She heard him gasp and shut her eyes. "I didn't know… I didn't want to lie."

"She fucking asked you that? At school?" His voice rose again. "That's—completely inappropriate!"

"I know."

"Holy shit, Astrid. How am I supposed to go back there?"

Better not mention the whole "too young for grandchildren" thing, Astrid decided. He knew enough, she could rest easy knowing she'd told him a sanitized version of the truth. "It'll be okay."

"I can't be around them. I can't. I need to get out of here," he panted, not reassured. Under his voice she could hear passing sirens, so he hadn't gone back to the apartment yet.

"Out of where?"

"I… I don't know. I just need to get away from my parents for a while. Out of New York. Somewhere I can go weeks without thinking about this. I've been under this cloud for a decade, I'm ready to be—something other than a child of divorce."

A selfish part of her wanted to say, but what about me? Except it wasn't the right question for the occasion; she knew better, and she wanted him to feel better too, not just to feel better herself. "Where are you going to go?" she asked innocently, as though this were some fantasy she didn't quite need to indulge as a possibility. As though they were only playing like he'd leave, when he never would, not really.

"I'm going to go…" His voice grew hollow and distant. "Somewhere far away. Somewhere hot and sunny."

"Los Angeles?" she joked, and he giggled half-heartedly.

"Yeah. That seems good enough for now, I'll be right there."

"Good. I miss you." And she did; it was fucking terrible to hear the thinly veiled pain in his voice and be utterly helpless to stop it.

"I miss you too. You know, for someone with horrible anger issues, you're pretty good at calming me down." Astrid felt the stupidest grin crawl over her lips.

"What the fuck are you talking about, Haddock? Fucking anger issues? Bullshit." Now he was really laughing. "If you were here right now I'd show you fucking anger issues."

"Oh yeah? How's that?"

"I'd hug you so hard you'd like, burst a blood vessel."

"Oh man. That sounds romantic."

"It's super fucking sweet."

"It is. I love you, Astrid." She felt the grin slide from her face. Surprised. Her cheeks grew warm. "Oh," came Hiccup's voice weakly, "Sorry, uh. I was kind of hoping to say it to your face for the… first time. Sorry. Shit. Rough day."

"It's okay. That was perfect," she managed. Her throat tightened. I love you, Astrid.

"I know it's only been a few months, it's soon…"

"It's been more than a few months." It may well have been that when Fish said they were in love only a week after their get-together, he was right. She couldn't pinpoint when she started loving Hiccup—maybe it had been at an entirely inappropriate time: when he was with Heather, when he told her she deserved everything. Maybe it was more gradual, a slow drip of action and affection until she filled up with love for him. But somewhere along the way she had fallen and fallen hard, and she sat on her little concrete porch looking out over her hometown, felled, cradling her phone to her ear and missing more than ever the bony firmness of his chest. "I love you too," she muttered, eyes screwed shut as she fought off a stab of pain—not that it was painful to love him, only that it was painful to love him and be apart. As much as she'd helped him and been there when he needed, he had done the same for her. Was that codependence? She didn't think so, she only felt safer and happier to be near him.

"Uh. Thank you." A laugh escaped her, what a sudden awkward dive, and then Hiccup was laughing too.

"We are bad at this," she said breathlessly.

"Nah, we're—perfect," he borrowed her word.

"Do you feel any better?"

"Yeah. Way better." There was new warmth in his tone that lifted Astrid's heart.

"Okay, well, I sort of… ran out in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner to come talk to you—"

"Wait, seriously!"

"Yeah. I told them it'd only be a second. My mom's going to be pissed." She glanced inside through the glass door and spied her mother's blonde head of hair disappearing back into the dining room. Speaking of maternal spying.

"I'll let you go. Tell your parents I said hi."

"Sure." Not that they knew she had a boyfriend or had ever heard Hiccup's name, but whatever. Didn't seem like she could get away with that charade much longer. "What are you going to do? Are you going home? Call me later."

"Demanding!"

"I thought you like me being demanding." Hiccup made a mock affronted sound, and she giggled into the phone. "Okay, I gotta go…" A thought occurred that, if he were here, she could peck him on the cheek to say goodbye. "Hey, we should practice doing sex stuff on Skype when we get back to school so we can be ready for winter break."

"Ha, ha… oh, you're not kidding?"

"No! I waited like a year. I can't do another five weeks."

His laughter turned stiff and humorless, a puzzling thing, but he covered it up quickly: "I'll think about it. I think I'm going to talk to my parents when I get home."

Astrid had stood to go inside, but froze with her hand on the door. "Talk to them."

"Yeah, remember how on our first date, you told me…" She remembered. She had wanted him to stand up for himself—kind of ironic when she couldn't bring herself to shoot down his mother's probing queries, but it was different for Hiccup. It meant a lot for him to say this.

"What are you going to say?"

"That… I don't care if they get married, I only care if they get divorced. I won't be there for them if they do that."

"That's good, babe," she choked out, overcome. "I'm proud of you."

"Are you… crying?"

She jerked the phone away from her ear and glared at it. "No! I'm just really fucking proud of you! I have to go!"

"Bye, Astrid," Hiccup laughed, and the sound echoed in her ears as she went back inside.

Her family didn't look like they'd moved—even her mother, who had been peeking at her not five minutes ago, posed guiltlessly with her eyes on the table. But their plates were emptier than when she left.

"Welcome back, honey," said her dad with forced cheer. Astrid gave him a tiny smile and fell back into her chair. Across from her, Alec sniggered.

Her mother cleared her throat. "You might need to zap your food in the microwave."

"I'm sure it's fine," Astrid insisted, not wanting to disrupt the meal any more than she already had. "Sorry I took so long." And she shoveled a forkful of lukewarm mashed potatoes into her mouth.

"Is everything all right with your friend?" She knew this tactic; she could recognize the way her mother said friend; it demanded to know who was so important that she'd run out on a holiday dinner with her family. Fair enough, Astrid thought, but it wouldn't make telling them any easier. She could sense they'd been waiting to hear any news of a boy after Ben—they being her parents, Alec and Syd weren't old enough to worry about her. They weren't even old enough to understand what precisely had happened with her ex. But her parents: they must've thought she was damaged for life, it had been over a year since they'd heard about any romantic interest who wasn't just terrorizing her.

And they'd know about Hiccup eventually. He would meet them. He would sit at this very table and explain calmly how he'd become interested in structural engineering and about the significance of his Scottish heritage. He would sleep on their couch. Hiding it delayed the inevitable, and Astrid had started to hate delays. "Everything's fine now. With my boyfriend, actually."

Predictably, her mother said, "A boyfriend," and cast a look down the table at her father.

"You left in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner to go talk to your boyfriend?" asked Sydney, delighted by the misbehavior, but Astrid had anticipated this and she addressed her sister frankly.

"He has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and he was having a panic attack."

This statement silenced the room. She kept her gaze trained on what was left on her turkey, hoping to avoid whatever series of glances was going on between her family members, particularly her mother and father. Maybe they thought she had a soft spot for boys with horrible mental problems, and maybe she did, but Hiccup and Ben couldn't have been more different. If anyone asked, she would say just that.

"Well," said her dad finally, "are you going to tell us about him?"

"He's in my year. He's studying engineering."

"And how long—"

"Three months." Nodding, she reconsidered. "I guess it's more like two, technically. Since we started officially dating."

"How do you unofficially date?" demanded Sydney—sounding young and curious, and Alec threw Astrid a hilarious look, as if to say, do you want me or you to explain to her about hooking up? She scowled, and pointedly ignored him.

"I just didn't call him my boyfriend right away."

Syd's nose wrinkled. "That's weird. How do you know this boy?"

"We've been friends since freshman year."

"Is it the one with the weird voice you kept skyping last Christmas?"

An odd expression crossed her mother's face, yet another thing for Astrid to ignore. "Uh. Yeah. I guess we did skype at Christmas."

"You've been friends for a long time," her mom observed, "Is it serious, then?"

Astrid took a long moment. Her food was cold, but it didn't matter, she didn't feel hungry anymore. Is it serious. She couldn't doubt the answer—ten minutes ago he had told her he loved her. For the first time, sure, but it wasn't as if that switch just flipped on in the middle of their phone call. And maybe even more serious than that, she'd told her family about him. So her reply was self-evident because her mother had been able to ask the question.

"Yep," she sighed. "It's serious."

"Wow," said her mom, slowly, looking at her father again. "That's great, honey."

Astrid inhaled, and beamed around the table. "Yeah. It is. Can I help clear the dishes?"

Snugged into her childhood bed that night, she tried to read a novel—breaks were the only time for pleasure reading, college had taught her—but the words blurred together. Her mind went elsewhere. Hiccup had called again before he went to sleep, and they talked for another hour about the conversation with his parents. She felt congested, nothing going in or out of her head. Sighing, Astrid snapped the book shut just as Sydney returned from the bathroom with her hair in a towel. She collapsed on to her bed and squinted across the room at her older sister, who lay face-to-pillow.

"Mom and Dad met in college, you know." More of this, okay.

She shifted her head just enough that her speech wouldn't sound entirely muffled. "Mom and Dad met in law school."

"So?"

"So they were a lot older than I am right now."

"A lot of people marry their college boyfriends," Sydney pointed out, as if she knew what she was talking about.

"Not lesbians."

"You're not a lesbian."

"No, Syd, I'm not a lesbian."

"You just like to date girls sometimes."

Astrid raised her head from the pillow and gave her sister a withering look. "Do you have a point to make?"

Shrugging, Syd started took the towel from her damp blonde hair and attacked it with a brush. Like Astrid, she wore it in a braid most days, though because she didn't swim frequently she didn't have the same problem with chlorine affecting the texture. It had taken Astrid a long time to realize her younger sister emulated her subconsciously. "I was just wondering if you're going to end up married to your boyfriend."

Astrid rubbed her eyes. "I don't think so, Syd."

"How do you know?"

"He doesn't want to get married."

"But you already talked about it!"

"No, he just—" She sat up with a grunt. "His parents are like, horribly divorced. He doesn't want to get married ever. Not everybody has a family like us."

Her sister watched her, frowning slightly. "That's sad."

"I guess… I guess it is kind of sad, yeah."

"Why did you pick a boyfriend with such a terrible life?" Syd demanded, like she'd just remembered the mention of a horrible mental illness at the dinner table, and put that together with the marriage thing—so perhaps Astrid had not painted a particularly sunny portrait of Hiccup for her family thus far.

Pick him. Why'd she pick him? "You've had crushes on boys before, right?" Syd pouted and turned away from her, which was a yes. "Did you pick those boys? No, right?"

"Fine. I get it. Terrible life boy is just super cute or something!" Tossing her hairbrush aside, Syd climbed under the covers with a pout. "I'm shutting off the light."

"Sure."

Lying there in the dark, Astrid thought of him again. When she thought of Hiccup somewhere hot and sunny, she didn't see LA—she didn't know where he was, but it felt far-off and she couldn't imagine herself there with him. The dissonance deafened her, she pulled the blanket over her head.

Her little sister's voice rang through the blackness of the room, talking with the lights off, just like when they were little girls. "Our family's pretty cool, but I can't wait to have my own room."