During the long flight there had been nothing but the biting wind and breathing- a strain of which was not his own. Hiccup had never held onto anything tighter in his life than that moment he was clutching smooth scales and further more the young woman that he hunched over upon Aurora’s back, holding her steady as they flew for Berk.

That was two days ago and her recovery was slow. 

He’d spent enough time sitting near the bed that it became a concern and his mother had asked Astrid of all people to talk to him- not able to find the words to comfort him herself (it’d been such a long time since they were last family). Hiccup was rightfully surprised to see her as her hands grasped his and she lowered herself eyelevel with the chair. “Hiccup, I understand your upset but you can’t spend every moment of your free time waiting for her to wake up.” While she was being gentle he could tell by the way she nipped at the corner of her lip that she wanted to say ’if she does’ and they were both thinking it so no secret there. No one was really sure if she would simply because she hadn’t yet. 

“Someone should.” He had reason to be upset with her but he wasn’t. “When she wakes up.” 

Eventually Astrid convinced him to come down to the Great Hall for dinner because Aurora was watching the girl and she’d be fine in the meantime. Astrid assured him of this and the protesting rumbles within his gut decided things for him. At that point, he wouldn’t have been allowed to say no. So now he was sitting at one of the tables with only the minimum crowd, consisting of all the similarly aged Vikings along with Toothless. The sum of which stopped speaking when Aurora came bouncing up aside from a rude comment on one of the twin’s parts and a whack from the other- he couldn’t be bothered to sort that out. He immediately got to his feet, scooting around the table to touch Aurora’s forehead with an uncertain smile before starting towards the massive doors. With all her excitement it could only mean Castiel had woken up.