"Astrid, I need help" I said, when I found the girl in the hall, having dinner.

"With?" she said, looking at me curiously.

"Hiccup" she made a 'things are going wrong, aren't they?' Expression.

"Oh, no. What happened now?"

"I miss him" okay, I know that sounded too girly-girl like, like one of those annoying girls whose only wish was that their boyfriends were with them all day, but it wasn't like that. I missed spending time with him, not him himself.

"You see him practically everyday" pointed out Astrid raising an eyebrow.

"I know, I know" I sat down in front of her "But I miss doing things with him, spending time with him"

"Tell him" she said simply.

"But what if he doesn't want to spend time with me? Or what if he thinks I'm annoying?" I was the one that was gone for five years, I shouldn't even have had the right to state that I missed him and wanted to spend time with him if I had only been there five days, when he didn't have me for five years.

"Lexi, there's nothing that Hiccup would like more than to spend time with you. Trust me, I know it" then why hadn't he said something? He had known me for six years! He knew I love spending time with him! He shouldn't be embarrassed to ask!

"Maybe I just need to wait for him to ask, I don't wanna seem so needy..." I said doubtful.

"Lexi, there's no way Hiccup will think you are needy. You are his best friend!" I smiled, but I still wasn't sure "In fact, you know what? He's in his house right now, you are gonna go down there and tell him 'Hiccup, I want to spend some quality time with my best friend 'and that's it! You have your date!" I decided to ignore the fact that she meant 'date' as in romantic date.

"But what if he's busy? I mean, he's about to become chief, so he sure has a lot of work to do. And besides, he is still trying to find new species of dragons..."

"Lexa, quit stalling and just go" I stopped talking and looked at her. She was smiling back at me, encouraging me. I took a deep breath and nodded.

"You're right, you're right, I'm asking him. Wish me luck"

"Good luck" and with that, I went out of the hall and outside the village.

"There you are!" I turned around to find Snotlout approaching me and I rolled my eyes, continuing walking as if I had never heard him, but he followed me and stepped in my way. I scoffed.

"What do you want?" I asked bluntly, crossing my arms.

"Are you busy?" oh gods, he really, really, didn't give up.

"Not really, I was just pretending you didn't exist" I said with a deadpan face.

"Oh, good, because...Wait, what?" I asked the gods to give me patience and replied:

"Snotlout, for like the seventh time, and, hopefully, the last one, I'm not interested!" what did I have to do to make him understand? Honestly! It was getting annoying! At least Tuffnut wasn't there.

"Lexa, there you are!" 

I spoke too soon. 

It was like they had some kind of radar! Every time one of them was talking to me, the other suddenly appeared.

I turned around and saw him smiling at me, with a really ridiculous smile by the way "I was wondering if you wanted to hang out later" 

NO! I DIDN'T!

"Tuffnut, what do I have to do to make you understand? I'm-" Snotlout cut me off.

"Oh, don't you dare, Tuffnut! She is going out with me" 

Seriously?!

"Ah-ah, she is going out with me!" I decided to step aside, just in case they started throwing punches, which they were very likely to do.

"No-oh, I asked first!" said Snotlout, approaching him threateningly.

"But she rejected you, didn't she?" 

While they were busy getting at each other's face, I snuck past them and resumed my way to Hiccup's house.

They were so hard to get rid of!

When I finally arrived to the house,  I knocked on the door a couple of times while looking around to make sure they hadn't followed me.  Hiccup opened the door on the 4th knock.

"Hey! Where have you been?" he asked. 

Was he expecting me to come by in the course of the day? I wasn't really the type of girl that appeared in people's houses without a previous announcement...

...Unless that person was Hiccup. Of course. That was what I used to do five years ago, and he wouldn't be surprised at all. In fact, he was always expecting me. I was relieved to see that things hadn't changed that much between us. 

"Quick! Hide me!" I urged, getting into the house.

"What's going on?" he asked, closing the door behind me.

"I've just escaped Snotlout and Tuffnut" I approached the window, looking for any signs of them "It's only a matter of time before they come here looking for me" I added as I closed the curtains, so they wouldn't notice me if they looked through it from outside the house.

"Are they flirting with you again?" he asked, though he didn't sound surprised. 

At that point, who would? 

But even if everyone was aware of the pointless attempts the men made, I had to admit that the fact that Hiccup didn't sound the tiniest bit annoyed was a bit disappointing. 

"If you call doing ridiculous smiles and fighting with each other flirting, then yes, they are flirting again" he chucked, but I couldn't. Hiccup may have not been bothered by them, but I was "They are so irritating!" the rider smiled this time, and approached the dining table. There were some papers scattered there, and he started to stack them up to clear the surface. 

"They are insistent" he corrected, arranging some dishes that I assumed had to be washed "And I can't blame them" 

Wait, what? 

"Though it's true that they can get annoying sometimes"

"Wait, what did you just say?" he turned around, giving me a frown.

"They can get annoying?" he tried, but I shook my head.

"No, before that"

"They are insistent?" he tried again, but I was pretty sure he was doing it on purpose.

"No, after that" 

I meant the part of blaming them. He was about to answer, but a voice coming from outside cut him off. A voice I was really tired of listening to.

"Hiccup, open the door!" shouted Snotlout.

"Oh, gods" I groaned.

"Hide in my room, I'll cover up for you" indicated Hiccup.

"Thank you!" I said, and rushed upstairs, though what he had said was still ringing in my mind.

'I can't blame them'. That was what he had said, but in what sense? Blaming as in I was one of the only girls of their age there, or as in I was kind of a new face for them, or blame because Hiccup thought I was pretty? Those thoughts were clouding my mind as I opened the door to his bedroom, and saw Toothless resting there.

When he saw me, he purred happily and approached me. But I tried to calm him down.

"Shh. Toothless, they can't know I'm here" I said, rubbing his head and he went back to his bed.

I couldn't make up the whole conversation downstairs, but I could make up some words, like 'Date' 'Not here' 'Where else' and 'Seduce'. I was sure that if I kept listening, I would end up throwing up so, instead, I focused on observing my surroundings.

It wasn't that big, but it certainly was more spacious than mine. On one corner, he had his bed and night table. His bed was perfectly tied up, and the lamp on the table was on. It was the only light in the room. On the floor, at the bottom of the bed, there was wooden chest which Hiccup often used to keep maps, pieces of paper and some charcoal pencils. The things he used to explore and write down everything he saw, basically.

To the left, the only visible thing was his desk and chair. The desk was full of papers and pencils, each one of them with a drawing of one part of the map. Stuck in the wall were his blueprints for everything he built, but he mostly drew them on his sketchbook.

What was really weird, though, was that his sketchbook was there on the desk. It was weird, because he always had it with him. Curiosity took hold of me; I had never seen his sketchbook before, which was really weird considering I had known him for six years (five out of six of those I wasn't there, but whatever) And I know you are thinking that, too.

I knew that what I was about to do wasn't really good, because it was his sketchbook and I was going to invade his privacy, but don't blame me! Blame him for being so secretive with it! Though on second thought, knowing me, I think it was best if he kept it hidden.

I approached the desk, sat on the chair and started to go through its pages.

The first few pages were full of blueprints for Toothless' wing and saddle; those were from five years ago. Arriving to the section from the time in which I was gone, I saw some really great drawings of the places he and the riders had discovered, and also about some new species of dragons they had found; some of them were the Thunderdrum, the Snow Wraith and the Death Song. I also noticed that his drawings had gotten better with the years.

When I arrived to one of the last pages he had used, what I saw let me speechless:

He had drawn me.

It was just my face, but he had bothered to use two whole pages for it. It was one side of my face, and he had captured every detail perfectly. My hair seemed like it was being blown by a breeze, all my strands seemed like floating and he had drawn a beautiful flower decorating my head; a Blue Zinnia. I was gazing towards the sky, my hand was resting on my cheek and I had a dreamy expression. My eyes were sparkling. 

 It was beautiful.

Why had he drawn that? Why now? I mean, I would understand when I was away because he had probably missed me, and drawing my portrait was the way to cope with it, but I was back, so what could it possibly mean?

I didn't have time to get my head around it too much, because I heard steps coming from outside of the room. I closed the book immediately and went to sit on Hiccup's bed, as if I had been there the whole time.

Seconds after doing that, he opened the door.

"They left" he said.

"Thanks the gods" I said "I thought I'd never get rid of them" I followed Hiccup downstairs as I was saying this "What did you tell them?"

"Just that you weren't here. They thought you were at home, but I told them that you weren't going to be there all day" I frowned "I told them that you were going to spend the day with Thunderlight" 

"Did they buy it?"

"I don't know" he replied "But at least they won't bother you for a couple hours"

I stayed silent for a few moments, before finally gathering up the courage to ask him what I wanted to ask him, because that was what I was doing there in the first place. Snotlout and Tuffnut were a slight setback, which turned out to be a good one in the end because, otherwise, I wouldn't have found the beautiful drawing Hiccup had made of me.

I didn't know if I should ask him about it. It wasn't like he would start screaming and shouting at me for seeing his journal...

...Or maybe he would?

No, no, Hiccup was not like that. Ugh, my insecurity was taking control of me again.

I was really insecure when it came to Hiccup, and I had no idea why. Every time I found out something, or something happened, I was afraid he'd suddenly start rejecting me or something like that. Like that time when he became the best in the dragon academy, and everyone was following him everywhere. I was afraid of being replaced.

I chose not to ask him about the drawing, just in case. I would just stick to the original plan.

"Hey, Hiccup?" he turned to look at me with his emerald eyes upon hearing my voice. 

Gods, they were so beautiful...

Ugh, I had to focus. I hadn't gone there to admire his eyes! 

"I was thinking that maybe we could spend a day together?" his eyes lit up upon hearing me "You know, how we used to do?" he smiled.

"Yeah, I'd like that" I smiled back.

"I know that right now you're busy with all this chief stuff and worried about Drago, so we could do it whenever you have time" I replied "If you ever have time again" I whispered the last part, so he wouldn't hear me. Once he became chief, he wouldn't have as much time as he had then, so he had to put every minute he had left to good use.

"Tomorrow" he said all of a sudden. That was unexpected.

"Really?" he nodded "But don't you have to spend the day with your dad doing chief stuff?" I asked and he shrugged.

"It's not like I've ever listened to him before, so why start now?" I chuckled. His personality hadn't changed a bit.

"Okay, sure!" I said excitedly "See you tomorrow!" he chuckled at my excitement.

"See you tomorrow, 'Lex" I heard him say, before I closed the door behind me and began to squeal silently.

I would finally spend some quality time with my best friend, for old times' sake. I was really excited, as you could tell.

It wasn't that hard, after all. I really needed to thank Astrid for giving me a push, that was why she was my best girl-friend.

That night, after my night ride with Thunderlight which I wouldn't miss it for anything in the world, I slept with the scent of the Zinnia filling the room, and with a smile drawn on my face.