Chapter Text
It’s all a blur, as Heather shakes him awake as she did five hours earlier, saying “you really need to get up, it’s past half seven and Dagur’s already a bit pissed,” and the sick, guilty feeling he was so used to with his dad swarms him. He drags himself out of bed, fumbles with his prosthetic, and - after a moment’s contemplation - skips breakfast. His stomach churns at even the thought of eating today, and Dagur and Heather probably won’t find out, so he squishes the growing guilty feeling into his chest when he tells Heather “yeah, I had a piece of toast” as they walk to the bus station.
It’s all a blur as he goes to his classes, one after the other, all barely distinguishable. Mindless, he scribbles down what he’s supposed to, and takes photos of all his notes to send to Astrid. Astrid, Astrid, Astrid. She’s somehow more present in his thoughts than if she were there; she follows him like a ghost. Many times he turns to the empty seat next to him, only to feel his heart sink over and over. He buys the last of her favourite juice bottle before anyone else can take it, only to place it down in front of an empty spot on the field.
“You know why she’s not here?” Snotlout asks.
“Hm?” Hiccup asks, doodling the same teardrop shape over and over in a spiral, until the paper shreds and bleeds through the pages beneath it.
“ Astrid, ” he says, and Hiccup shrugs. “C’mon dude, you’re literally her boyfriend. And she never gets sick, so she’d obviously call you if she was.”
“And she’s not injured, cos her gymnastics is tonight , not yesterday,” Tuffnut adds.
“Dude, do you have our schedules memorised or something?” Snotlout asks, incredulous.
“Maybe.”
“But if she’s sick, then wouldn’t she tell all of us?” Fishlegs says. “You guys know Astrid, she’s honest about this stuff.”
“Yeah, well maybe something bad has happened,” Ruffnut says, twirling one of her three plaits around her hand. “And she can’t message us.”
Fishlegs lets out a tiny gasp of horror. Snotlout’s mouth falls open, and a bit of water actually dribbles out of his lips, splattering onto his shirt.
“Guys, I’m sure nothing bad -bad has happened,” Tuff says.
“Yeah! I’m sure of it!” Heather adds, a little too optimistically. “Right, Hic-”
“Leave me alone.” He shoves his lunchbox into his bag. “I- I’m sorry. I’m not hungry.”
Great. So, not only has he made it obvious how he definitely knows that Astrid’s sick, but he’s being his usual asshole self towards his friends. What did they even do to deserve it?
Thunk! Hiccup’s prosthetic leg slams into a nearby tree trunk, denting the wood. He brushes splinters off his trainer, and sits slumped at the base of the same tree, angled so his friends can’t see him quietly begin to cry. He doesn’t eat his lunch either.
.o0o.
At four twenty six pm - school is over, he’s showered the germs off his skin, and he forced himself to eat the sliced fruit Dagur made as a snack - he finally gathers the courage to call Astrid.
Please don’t pick up, he silently wills in his head, pacing his bedroom. Please don’t pick up, please don’t pick up, ple-
“Hiccup?” God , she sounds awful. “Are you there?”
“Yeah- yeah, I’m here.” A lump forms in his throat like a tumour. He wonders, for a moment, how he is going to survive this conversation - which doesn’t make any sense. Astrid Herrera-Sosa is his girlfriend . He’s never felt remotely like this talking to her since he first asked her out. “How are you doing?”
“Eh. Not well.” She coughs, rattling and static-y, down the phone. “I got worse yesterday evening, so my tía and tío decided to hospitalise me before I got any...” Hiccup notices she avoids the word worse , like saying it will bring bad luck. “They were just worried about me, Hiccup.”
“Mhm.” Hiccup tries to swallow the lump in his throat. It doesn’t work. “Are you on anything?”
“When I got there, they gave me 500 mg of so-tro-vi-mab,” she spells out, “and if it works, I can go home tomorrow.”
“Isn’t that an intravenous drug?” Hiccup asks, unsure for the life of him how he knows that.
“Oh. Yeah, yeah. But it doesn’t hurt at all, I promise. Really, Hiccup, I feel fine. Maybe a bit dizzy and nauseous, but fine.” Hiccup can almost hear her strained smile. “I don’t want you to worry.”
Ah yes, his girlfriend is seriously sick, and her first thought is if he’s worried. Of course it is.
Why can’t I be stronger than this? Why can’t I be brave enough for Astrid to feel like she can lean on me? Instead, it’s the other way around, no matter what I try to do. I’m just too messed up.
“I miss you,” he says. All but solidifying his thoughts.
“I miss you too.” She sighs. “It’s not fair I can’t see you.”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t even think about being sorry, Haddock,” she scolds. Hiccup almost brings himself to laugh.
“Alright, alright. Sorry.”
“ Hiccup! ” She laughs, hacking and uneasy, which sends her into a fit of coughing.
“What?” He asks when it’s over.
“That- that word . The S-word. Do I need to make a swear jar for the S-word or something?”
Hiccup grins at her suggestion. “Maybe. Although, I can’t help but feel like there’s worse I could be saying to you right now.”
Like how scared I am of you sick in a hospital bed with an IV tube in your arm, he thinks.
“I’m pretty sure you just being here is-” then she bursts into coughing, gasping raggedly for air, and Hiccup’s spark of happiness is gone in a second.
“Astrid?” He says, frantic, into the phone. “Astrid!”
She doesn’t reply. There’s a sickening clattering sound as the phone falls to the floor, followed by more coughing - a raspy, gut-wrenching sound - and a flurry of frantic activity.
Horrified, Hiccup hangs up before he can listen to anything else he doesn’t want to hear.
He crashes onto his bed. Dread fills him. He’s never been religious, but he wishes he was, so he could pray or something, instead of feeling so damn helpless sitting around doing nothing.
“Hiccup?” Dagur knocks gently on his door. “Are you alright? You sounded... worried.”
His eyes meet Dagur’s - sweet, kind, rough-but-caring Dagur, who would kill anyone who dared hurt him and Heather, who took him in without a second thought on September the first, right before junior year began, who would defend him and Heather’s little friend group without a second thought - and he promptly bursts into tears.
Dagur shushes him, more to soothe than quiet him, rubbing circles into his back. The repetition lulls him into a sort of trance, where there’s a brief, numb moment where nothing in the world matters but the way his pseudo-brother’s arms are so warm, and steady, and he’s left craving the comfort he didn’t grow up with.
“Whatever happened, you don’t have to talk about it,” Dagur murmurs in his ear.
“No- no, I want to talk about it. But- not yet. Over dinner.”
Dinner. He’s barely eaten all day. Dagur would be pissed if he found out.
“Okay then.” He ruffles his hair, pride in his eyes like a brother’s eyes would be , and Hiccup leans into the touch. “What do you want for dinner?”
“Hm... some stir fry with rice sounds nice.”
Dagur nods his head towards the door. “C’mon. We can make it together. If- if you want to, that is.”
Still sniffling, Hiccup wipes his damp cheeks with the cuff of his sleeve. Dagur procures some tissues from his pocket, and Hiccup gratefully takes one and blows his nose.
“Yeah. Yeah, dinner sounds good.”
.o0o.
Like a miracle, his day begins to improve. He sits on the bar stool in the kitchen and chops vegetables while Dagur does a ‘sauce-ome special’ where he basically throws every sauce he can find into the pan. Hiccup’s pretty sure calling it stir-fry at this point would be seriously offending the Chinese cooks millenia ago who invented it.
They sit down to eat, pouring lemonade - Hiccup’s favourite - while Heather rambles about some argument she won on tumblr against a bigot. She’s really, genuinely funny when she wants to be, and Hiccup laughs until his sides hurt, and he feels guilty for being so happy, because his girlfriend cannot currently laugh without damn-near asphyxiating herself.
He stills, his face falling, and Dagur squeezes his hand. “Hey. Once you’ve finished, we can go watch a movie. Just us three.”
“And Toothless,” says Hiccup numbly.
“And Windshear,” Heather adds.
“Okay, okay, us three and the zoo.” Dagur laughs, and Hiccup finishes his sauce-ome special in silence.
Minutes later, he’s cosy on the sofa, curled in a blanket with Toothless purring on his chest. Dagur and Heather sit either side of him, making occasional comments about the movie - Bohemian Rhapsody , the one about Freddie Mercury’s life - and Hiccup mumbles agreement when he feels he can talk, but it’s okay when he can’t because Dagur and Heather squeeze his hands when the words stick, and it’s all going so well, and then- then-
At ten twenty two in the evening, Hiccup gets a call from a number he doesn’t know.
“Hello?”
“Is this Hiccup?”
Hiccup practically jumps off the sofa. Toothless stumbles off his lap onto Heather’s, and hisses at him. He walks into the hall and ignores it, a pang of guilt hitting his chest. It’s Astrid’s aunt. Which means Astrid must be-
Oh God. The ground swoops so sickeningly it’s a miracle Hiccup doesn’t pass out.
“Yeah, yes- yes, it’s Hiccup. Is Astrid okay?”
The silence only confirms his suspicions. “Ms Herrera-Sosa? Is Astrid-”
“She’s fine. But she’s getting worse,” she says gravely. “We - my husband and I - were wondering if you are able to see her in person? Obviously not tonight, but-”
He’s already leaving the living room, edging his winter coat on. “No, I’ll come now.”
“Hiccup, it’s not even visiting hours.”
“Well I’ll- I’ll find a way, okay? I need -” his voice breaks, coming dangerously close to a sob. “I need to see her. Just in case-”
“Hiccup, she’ll be fine. I promise .” She emphasises the last word like she’s a magician performing a magic trick - and she knows something Hiccup doesn’t. Only she’s not; she’s stressed, worried, and the closest thing Astrid has to a mother. Hiccup would bet his other leg she’s as worried about her as he is.
“You can’t- what if she... if something happened and I wasn’t there-”
“Astrid’s a fit and healthy young woman. And, she’s not in any of the Covid risk groups,” she says. It sounds infuriatingly logical to Hiccup.
Hiccup’s voice feels like a glass cylinder full of water that could cave and spill and second when he says “you promise you’ll take care of her?”
“Really and truly. You have my word.”
He thanks her, and hangs up the call. Dagur and Heather don’t ask why he goes to bed early, nor why he wakes up with red eyes and a sore throat the next morning.
.o0o.
As Hiccup chews his way through a piece of toast, he asks “can I go to the hospital? I need to see Astrid.”
Heather looks at him like he’s sprouted wings. “Are you out of your mind? You - someone with a weakened immune system - are going to see someone with serious covid?”
Something indignant and hurt burns in Hiccup’s chest. “I want to see her. Astrid’s aunt said-”
“And does she know about your immune system?” Dagur asks.
Hiccup swallows his mouthful of toast before he replies. The crumbs scratch at his throat. “No. I’ll wear a mask, I’ll wash my hands, I’ll put on full PPE if I have to, but I need -” he stops, realising he raised his voice, and now Heather and Dagur are staring at him like he’s a circus freak ( they would never do that ) but he feels sick to his stomach, and their kindness may as well be poison, and-
He’s in the bathroom ( how did I get there? ) throwing up everything in his stomach, and then he’s just retching, bile dripping from his lips, his throat burns like acid’s dripping down it, and he’s dry heaving, and-
“Hiccup? Are you in there?”
A voice so far away, like shouting from the top of a hill.
Hiccup slams his hands over his ears. A tiny whine escapes his lips.
“It’s Dagur. Please let me in? Just so I know you’re alright.”
“Ca- can’t, I can’t ,” he says amidst heaving breaths.
“Hiccup, listen to me.”
His heart thuds in his ears. He is going to die. Maybe he’ll see Astrid in heaven.
“Hiccup. Can you move your body?” Dagur asks, and all his limbs feel frozen, tingling like he’s been electrocuted very faintly, but he lifts his arm up as if dragging it through tar and opens the door.
Dagur bursts in at once, gently moving to his side, gathering him into his arms like a baby.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Just breathe. It’s okay.”
“Not. ‘s not okay,” Hiccup says pathetically. “Astrid could die.”
Even in his delirious state, he hears Dagur gasp sharply. Eventually, he sighs, and says “it’s rare people die of covid. Even rarer if they’re not in the risk groups. And Astrid’s very healthy. I’ve seen people similar to her make perfect recoveries all the time.”
Hiccup faintly remembers Dagur working in the hospital even in the midst of the pandemic, Heather talking about it on discord chats with the gang.
The gang. Oh boy, Hiccup still hasn’t apologised for how he spoke to them earlier today. And he treated them so badly, when they were just being the well meaning people they are.
“Hiccup?”
He blinks. “Sorry, did you say something?”
“I said: if I can get you full PPE, you can maybe see Astrid. Maybe . I’ll have to pull some strings.”
“Wow- I mean, that would- that would be great .” He can hardly believe his luck.
He moves to stand up, but Dagur places a hand on his chest. “Slow down there, Hiccup.” He gently pulls him back down to the ground. “I’d like you to try to finish your breakfast. You’ll need fuel.”
He imagines the dry, scratchy crumbs stumbling down his throat like sand. “No.”
“ Hiccup, ” Dagur says pointedly.
“I can’t-” he stops himself short. “Can I have something else? Omelette?” His therapist called that a more positive way of thinking- think what he can do, instead of what he can’t . And what he can do is give himself other options.
“Sure you can.” Dagur playfully ruffles his hair. “I’ll make you one.”
He falls into another blur as he eats his omelette, pulls his clothes on, gets in the car, checks into the hospital, the world fuzzy like a watercolour painting. Dagur sneaks worried glnces at him, and he pretends not to notice them.
He takes him into the nurses’s locker room, and dresses himself in PPE. Hiccup observes, and begins picking up the gown, tugging it onto his sleeves, but Dagur raises a gloved hand. “Wait,” he says.
Hiccup lets Dagur do the rest, tying his surgical gown at the back and fastening his face shield over top of the surgical mask and goggles. Admittedly, he wouldn’t mind being a nurse or something if he got to be this protected. He feel oddly safe. No disease can touch his shitty immue system.
Dagur finished doing the poppers down his back. “You’re good to go. C’mon.”
With that, he prepares to see his girlfriend in person for the first time in several days.
Step- squeak . Step- squeak . He forgot to wash his prosthetic. Damn. He should probably attend to those daily tasks he keeps forgetting, like looking after himself.
The watercolour painting feeling comes back; the corridors begin to blur into a meaningless wash of white, the only direction Dagur’s body in front of his.
Just when he’s beginning to lose his sense of direction from the locker room to here, Mrs Herrera-Sosa appears, seeming in a hurry. Her eyebrows shoot up. “Hiccup? Is that you?”
He nods. “Dagur’s letting me see Astrid. Just for a moment.”
“Okay, but she’s still in strict self isolation,” she says like it’s nothing, and Hiccup stops walking. His vision blurs.
All of this for nothing.
“She’s what ?”
“I’m sorry, mijo.” Mrs Herrera-Sosa pats him on the arm, and he flinches away, disgusted.
All of this for nothing.
“Even I haven’t been able to see her. There’s a window to her room, you can see-”
All of this for nothing.
Hiccup zones out. He turns the corner from the direction Astrid’s aunt came from, continuing down the corridor, armed with nothing but his instincts. It’s like he has a sixth sense for her whereabouts - or just dumb luck - but he finds her room, sunlit and bright, and knocks on the window
The world is no longer a watercolour painting. Everything is in perfect detail, as if sharpened with a pencil sharpener.
“Astrid?” He says, then realises she can’t see his mouth move, nor hear his voice.
She looks towards him, an IV tube still in her forearm, her eyes dark and sad, and her lips form his name.
His hands practically slam into the window, like the sheer power of his desperation can break through glass. It’s cruel to hold her apart from everyone she loves. She’s the strongest person he knows, but she gets scared too, and-
Blood rushes in his ears. His head narrows into tunnel vision. There is only one thing he can do. “I'm coming in.”
“Hiccup, no! Don't!” She shouts loud enough for him to hear, but-
He flings the door open before she can fight against him. It would be remarkable if she managed even that. Without the window giving him the last sense of separation he has from her, he can see her suffering in minute detail: her skin is flushed and pale in the wrong places, her forehead looks shiny from sweat, and her whole body shivers sporadically.
It’s the worst thing he’s ever seen.
Protection be damned, he doesn’t feel safe anymore. He feels suffocated in this room, full of sickness and suffering. The weakness, so painfully obvious, feels like touching an open wound, like hearing someone scream. Astrid looks vulnerable , and it scares him more than anything he’s ever known.
“Astrid...”
“Hiccup, go. Please. ” She pleads, her eyes desperate, before her lungs give way to a fit of coughing. “You can’t- you shouldn’t be here.” Hiccup hates the fact she’s right. “Please. You’ll-” she coughs, struggling for air, and the sound tears Hiccup’s heart from his chest, “you could get sick.”
“Astrid, I’m-”
“ Go. ” He looks at her, expecting to find anger in her eyes, but she is only tired.
“C’mon Hiccup.” Dagur nudges the door open and gives him a grim look, nodding him to the exit.
Taking one last look at her, he backs away, turns on his heel and leaves.
Dagur shuts the door after him. “What... the hell was that? You know the risks, Hiccup.”
“It- it’s-” it’s worth it, he wants to say. It’s worth risking it all if I can be there for Astrid Like she always - always - is for me.
But he’s not exactly easing her worry by going against her wishes.
“Hiccup, I told you I would do this in a controlled manner- one that did not involve you marching right into your girlfriend’s contaminated room!” Dagur snapped, angrily walking back and forth down the hall. “I could lose my job, all because-”
Hiccup looks straight at him, his eyes throbbing painfully with unshed tears. Dagur softened at once, gently sitting down beside him. “Oh, Hiccup. I didn’t mean to shout. What you did was stupid, and reckless, but I know why you did it. I’d probably do the same.”
“Mhm.” Hiccup’s mask begins to soak with tears. “I’m just... scared. I’m so scared. People -” he breaks off. He can't say The D word. “Covid gets bad .”
“I know that, Hiccup. Why else do you think I stayed at the hospital six days and five nights a week all throughout 2020, and didn’t go near anyone outside the hospital until I took a long shower? Not just to help heal people, but so Heather wouldn't get sick.”
Hiccup blinks sadly. He couldn’t comprehend the enormous amount of suffering Dagur had had to witness first hand. “You are so brave,” he says. Even that feels insignificant.
Dagur nods. “It wasn’t bravery. I was just doing what I thought was right. And that was all I could do.”
He nudges Hiccup, and only then does he get what he’s trying to say. There’s nothing he can do to help Astrid. What is right is keeping himself safe, and being there for her. He can do that without being in the same room.
Immediately, he knows what he has to do.
His hand trembles as he knocks on the door. Astrid looks towards him almost immediately. Hesitantly, he lifts his hands, and begins to sign.
‘Astrid...’ he uses the ASL names they made up together after hours of meticulous internet research. ‘I’m so sorry.’
She shakes her head sadly. ‘It’s okay.’
‘I love you.’
Astrid laughs, her eyes ever so slightly scathing, as if to say “like I didn’t realise that from the ten times you’ve texted me that in a week.”
‘I love you too.’ She signs back. Because neither her nor Hiccup will ever get tired of hearing that come from someone as caring as the other.
Slowly, carefully, Hiccup raises his hand to the glass window, and places it there.
Astrid’s soft, blue eyes, pink around the edges and shadowed underneath, meet his. She moves her hand so it’s close to him.
It’s not fair. It’s not fair this is the closest they can be to each other without Hiccup risking his health. It’s not fair she has to get sick.
Astrid picks up her hand, and draws a heart. Hiccup mimics the gesture, a ghost of a smile on his face.
‘I love you’ , she mouths.
‘I love you too’ , he mouths back.
With a final, tired, strong smile, she nods goodbye, and returns to her bed.
Hiccup steps back, wobbling on his prosthetic. The adrenaline of the ordeal’s made him dizzy, and he is so ready to go home and take a shower.
“You okay?” Dagur says, his eyes kind and concerned.
“Yeah.” Hiccup nods wearily. “There’s just one stop I need to make on our way out.”
She’s in the pharmacy, talking quietly to a pharmacist. He stands a respectful distance away until she’s finished, depositing a box of pills in her bag.
“Mrs Herrera-Sosa?” Hiccup says, loudly enough for her not to miss him. “I’m- I’m sorry for, you know... I made a mistake.”
“It’s alright, mijo. Emotions are running high for us all.” She sighs tiredly. Hiccup feels that sound in his soul. “Now go home. Rest. You look exhausted.” She looks at him, a mixture of stern and caring. “Astrid will be fine with me.”
Dagur gently taps Hiccup’s arm. “I think it’s time for us to go.”
He nods. “Yeah. You’re right.”
The drive back home is a blur of countryside and grey buildings. Dagur parks in the driveway, and opens the door for Hiccup.
“You okay, brother?”
Hiccup’s always known Heather and Dagur view him as family. But thrill rushes through his body every time they say it outright.
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
Dagur unlocks the door, where Toothless yowls at the audacity of them being gone for a whole three hours. As soon he’s done petting him, Hiccup runs for the bathroom. He moves dizzyingly fast, stripping his clothes off and discarding them onto the floor. They’re a worry for later.
With a switch of the knob, water pours from the nozzle. He edges his hands into it and feels it go from cold, to cool, to warm, to hot, to a temperature he likes to call ‘a few degrees south of boiling alive’.
That’s too hot. It used to be not enough if it didn’t leave him with a pinkish scald all over. But he doesn’t need to do that. Astrid, and Dagur, and Heather, and his therapist all believe he can do better than that.
The water goes from scalding to hot, and he finally collapses onto the shower chair, sitting back as the warmth pounds his skin.
He wonders how Astrid is feeling now; whether his visit helped or worried her. If he’s hurt her in any way, he’s not sure how he’d live with himself. He can only hope otherwise. Besides, she did ask him to call. She wouldn’t say that if she didn’t want him.
She’ll be okay.
And so will he.
Hiccup takes a breath, steam flooding his throat, and shuts his eyes. Astrid’s sorrow-filled eyes, blue like the summer sky, blue like frost in winter, waver at the back of his mind. He breathes out. She’ll be okay.
.o0o.
Miraculously, over the days, Astrid starts to get better. Her coughing eases, her fever goes down, and something in her eyes begins to brighten. She tells him it’s something called ‘rem-de-si-vir’, another long name that kind of goes in through one ear and out the other, and it takes three days to work.
Meanwhile, Hiccup apologises to his friends, and they hug him, whisper “it’s okay, we understand,” in his ear. He realises then that they are just as worried as he is.
To his surprise (although he’s known it deep down), talking to his friends helps. The saddened conversation turns uplifting, and soon Hiccup is sitting squished in between Snotlout and Heather, doodling aimlessly in his notebook. He draws flowers: sunflowers for himself, and poppies for Astrid.
“You see that?” She lifted the petals with her index finger, her touch near impossibly gentle. “Poppies grow on battlefields. They seem breakable, but - when it matters - they are resilient. More so than the toughest trees.”
Hiccup hadn’t realised at the time why she was looking at him when she spoke. Now he knows. And it fills him with joy.
Astrid messages him every day, whether it’s a selfie, or a long conversation bitching about the enormous amount of home learning she’s supposed to be doing (which she and Hiccup both agree is ridiculous). She updates him when she gets to leave, and how nice it is to have a few days off to self isolate now she feels mostly better. It’s nice to talk to her, and maybe that’s all she needs to help feel good again.
Then, one morning eight or so days later, his notifications are blank. His happy grin in the selfie of him, Astrid and Snotlout glares back at him, borderline insulting to his current mood. He can hardly breathe through the thick clouds of worry in his head.
He tells Heather and Dagur over breakfast, and Heather says “maybe she’s just tired. You know how these things get.”
Dagur nods. “Covid can drain you. Don’t worry, maybe she’ll message you later.”
He smiles, grateful for their consolations, but she doesn’t message all throughout the forty five minutes it takes him to go from the breakfast table, to the bus stop, to the spot in the student library their group always sits in.
“Have you guys heard from Astrid?” He asks in vain. They all glance at each other, and shake their heads.
Then, just when he’s about to cave in and call her already, a voice behind him makes him jump.
“Hey guys. Miss me?”
Hiccup whips around, and for a moment, stares dumbfoundedly at her. She looks miles better: her eyes are brighter, her smile is back, even her hair looks healthier- the same fierce blonde he saw in the cafeteria a mere two weeks ago.
Words finally reach his mouth. “Astrid!” He launches out of his seat, and throws his arms around her. “Oh my God, I’ve missed you so much.”
She squeezes him back, her arms firm and tight. It hits him then how starved he was for human contact. Specifically her touch. Her hands were on his forearm when he first woke up after his leg loss. Her arms held him as his friends packed up the first fifteen years of his life when his dad unexpectedly left for a business trip.
And now she’s here, still a little unsteady, swaying like a poppy in the breeze and holding him tight, and he holds her back like he never wants to let go.