Aria’s P.O.V.

“So he just kicked you out of the place?” I laughed, taking a bite of my cinnamon roll.

“Pretty much.” Jace grinned. “Whatever. I’m proud that I stood up for that girl.”

Still the same old kind-hearted Jace Walters.

“So, any other heroic stories you got for me?” I asked. “You’re still such a great story-teller.”

“Nah,” Jace laughed. “How about I hear about you? How’s life been treating you?”

I wondered if I should tell him about how my father had kidnapped and tried to murder me, but I shook the thought away. There was no way I was going to talk about that ever again.

“Fine,” I said. “I mean, I’ve got a great family and a supportive mother and father in law. I’m pretty much a stay at home mom because Niall won’t let me get a job. His excuse is my weakness; I can hardly trust anyone to take care of my children. My trust limits are very reserved when it comes to my kids.”

“They are really cute,” Jace chuckled, sipping his coffee. “What are their names?”

“Nathan and Nicolette.” I replied. “They go by Nate and Colette and they’re twins.”

“Nice,” Jace smiled. He looked up and our eyes met for a second before he looked away. “Wish I had my own family.”

I bit my lip as I thought about all those times I had pictured Scarlett and Jace together as a married couple with children and the Labrador dog that Scar had always wanted.

“Yeah, I know that what you’re thinking about,” Jace sighed, making me look up. “You’re thinking about her, aren’t you? How we’d have made a great couple and shit.”

I blinked at him and wondered how he knew. “Yes, I was.”

Jace sighed again. His grip on his cup of coffee tightened and I swear his eyes were tearing up. “I miss her,” he whispered hoarsely, watching the coffee in his cup. “I hate talking about her because all I can think about is that I could’ve saved her from that stupid drunk driver. If only I had been the one in that car, driving her home.”

“Jace,” I said softly. “You know deep in your heart you couldn’t have stopped that car crash.”

“Damn it, she still died!” his voice rose so suddenly, it frightened me. Jace had never raised his voice to me, except the time I tried to stick my hand into a pot of boiling water. Jace’s facial features softened quickly and he set his hand on mine.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “She was just such a huge part of my life, you know?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “And I get that. I’m sorry for pushing it. It must be hard to talk about her.”

“I haven’t dated anyone since Scarlett.” Jace said quietly. My eyes widened in shock. I hadn’t realized he was so committed to her to the point that when she died, he hadn’t moved on. As horrible as it was, I think Scarlett would have moved on from Jace if she were in his position.

“Really?”

“Yes,” Jace nodded. “Really. Don’t think I’d be a single pringle working at a Disneyland café if I had moved on from Scarlett. But you know, when you meet someone as great as her, it’s really hard to move on.”

“Wow, I don’t know what to say,” I exhaled, running a hand through my hair. “That just shows how committed you were to my sister. I…I didn’t realize you loved her that much.”

“I loved her more than my own life,” Jace said sternly, not taking his eyes off me. I could tell he meant it with his whole heart. “I would have done anything for her. If I could have been the one in that car crash, I would have. If it meant that she would still be alive right now, I would’ve sure as hell done it.”

“Is this what you do every day?” I asked in a weak voice, “imagine what you could’ve have done in the past instead of focusing on what you should do in the future?”

Jace hesitated, then shrugged. “If you put it that way, then yeah.”

“That’s not a good way to live your life Jace.” I sighed, squeezing his hand. “Scarlett was a huge part of your life, but you need to move on. It must sound horrible to hear me say that-“

“Yeah. It is horrible,” Jace interrupted. I wrinkled my nose and continued.

“but, you’ve got a future. A future that you need to work towards. Scarlett would not want you to sit here moping around about her. She would want you to live life. Have fun. Meet new people. You can’t just think that stalling your life for Scarlett will bring her back, because it won’t. Newsflash, Jace, she’s dead.”

Jace’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped. It was then that I saw three, four tears slipping from his eyes, trickling down his cheeks. He wiped the tears away quickly and sat up straighter, probably trying to maintain his manliness.

I switched the topic back to my kids, anything to keep him from crying. Seeing Jace cry hurt my heart just as much as seeing my kids cry did. I’d do anything to stop it. I hadn’t seen it earlier, but there was so much pain in Jace’s face. It was hidden deep, but if you looked close enough you could see the dark pain pushed down deep in his eyes. He was still hurting, after such a long time.

I wanted to tell Jace about the note I had seen in the scrapbook. It had actually fallen out of my remembrance until now. I had completely forgotten about the scrapbook, having spent so much time with my family. Then I realized, telling Jace about the note wouldn’t help him move on. He’d be so sure Scarlet was still alive and give up his whole life to go look for her, using as evidence, a piece of paper that was probably just a prank.

I gulped, remembering the last time I thought something was a prank.

Jace had to get back to work afterward. He offered to give me a ride home but I declined and called a taxi instead. An hour later, I was walking down the hallway of the Hilton hotel, counting down the door numbers to our room. I unlocked the door with the card key and stepped inside.

The lights were dimmed and it was especially quiet.

I stepped forward and realized that my husband and kids were fast asleep. Nate and Nicolette were on either side of Niall, cuddled in his arms. Without hesitation, I had turned the flash off on my phone and snapped a photo shoot of pictures of the three of them.

What could I say? Niall wasn’t the only softie in the family.

“Ari?” Niall’s sleepy voice echoed the silent room.

“Shh,” I giggled softly. “Go back to sleep.”

Niall ignored me and sat up, moving around our sleeping children, and came over to me. He latched his arms around me and gave me a tight hug, kissing my jaw at the same time.

“I missed you.” He pouted, pecking my lips. I laughed and pushed his face away.

“I missed you too.”

“So how was it?” Niall asked, grabbing my hand. He led me to the small sofa and sat down, then patted his lap. I sat down on his lap and threw my legs over the arm of the sofa.

“Fine.”

“Fine?” Niall questioned. “That’s it?”

“Hush,” I told him. “I want to sleep.”

Niall sighed and ran his hand up and down my leg in a soothing motion, making it even easier for me to fall asleep. Weird how I had been up and running until now. Now I just wanted a pillow and a stuffed animal.

“Nicolette found the scrapbook.” I heard Niall say ever so quietly. And just like that I had sat up.

“What did you say?” I demanded, eyes wide. Niall sat there like a deer in headlights, staring at me like a dumb idiot. “Niall, what did you just say?”

“I said, Nicolette found your scrapbook.”

“Did she look in it?” I questioned frantically, gripping his shoulders tightly.

Niall shook his head. “Nope. I took it from her.”

“Oh thank god.” I breathed out, falling back onto the chair arm.

“But she did ask who the brown haired girl in the pictures were.”

“And,” I said. “What did you tell her?”

“I told her it was a really good friend of yours.” Niall smirked, obviously feeling proud of his good cover up. I didn’t want to boost his ego with any comments so I just stayed silent. My thoughts fell to my possible pregnancy and I wondered if I should go on and tell Niall. I don’t know what came over me but suddenly, it was all I could think about. Telling Niall. So I did.

“Niall?” I took one of his hands to grab his attention.

Niall smiled down at me and rubbed circles into my palm.“Yes, princess?”

“What if…” I took a deep breath. “What if I told you that I was pregnant?” Suddenly, I couldn’t feel him rubbing circles into my palm anymore. One of his arms moved under my back and pushed me up slowly so I was sitting up on his lap. He placed his hands on my shoulders and looked me dead in the eye.

“Are you serious?”

I gulped and looked down. “I-I mean I’m not sure or anything, but I think I am. I missed my…monthly cycle and I’ve been throwing up and feeling incredibly bipolar. Not to mention how tired I’ve been getting. It makes sense, don’t you think?”

The words “I knew it” escaped Niall’s mouth. I sat up straighter and cocked my head to the side.

“What?”

“I just knew it,” he told me. “It was kind of obvious after the second time you threw up. It was a lot like when you were pregnant with Nate and Nicolette. You got really weird and I never knew when you would get pissy about something super small-“

“Excuse me?” I laughed, gripping his thigh. “I was not pissy, nor am I pissy now.”

Niall blushed in the dim light. “Sorry, babe. The truth hurts.”

“So,” I sighed. “You’re not mad?”

“Why would I be?” Niall frowned, taking my hands. “Another child with you is all I could ever ask for.”

“I don’t even know for sure,” I pointed out. “I’m assuming from the symptoms.”

“I think we both know that you’re pregnant, princess.” Niall whispered, pressing his lips into my neck. “And I think we both should be very happy people right now.”

I couldn’t help but grin at his words, glad that he was okay with another child.

I could just imagine, the five of us on a beach, Nate and Nicolette a little bit older holding onto Niall’s hands with a baby boy or girl in my own arms.

“It’s going to be a boy.”

“No,” I shook my head. “I can just feel it. It’s going to be a girl.”

“Boy.”

“Girl.”

“Boy.”

“Girl.”

“Boy.” Okay. Now he was pissing me off.

“Girl.”

“Boy.”

“Shut up.” I groaned, resting my head on the arm of the chair again.

“Get’s pissed easily.” Niall spoke quietly to himself, a smirk present on his perfect pink lips. I rolled my eyes and stick up the finger at his face.

We just stayed like that until I reached up and touched his face, noticing a small scar at the side of his face.

“Where did this come from?” I asked, running my thumb over it. Niall looked down at me.

“It was from that day.”

We hadn’t talked about the day Niall and Liam came to my rescue since the night Niall and I had gotten back from the hospital. It was just such a disgusting, spine chilling topic to talk about. I ended up crying sometimes just thinking about it. That was probably the lowest point in my entire life and yet, it was the one time in my life that scarred my memory and heart the most.
“Oh,” was the only way I could respond. Niall knew it wasn’t a topic to continue on.


“So, I think we should name the baby Niall.” He changed to subject, to something even worse.

Baby names.

I remembered the horror of choosing names for Nate and Nicolette. It was disaster. Niall kept being incredibly annoying about it. He literally wanted to name Nate “Jimmy Reed.” When we got to girl names, he wanted to name Nicolette “Pippy Long-stocking.”

Oh, the horror.

“Niall, I will smack you if you’re not going to be serious about naming this child of ours. And for the record, it’s going to be a girl.”

“No,” Niall shook his head. “It’s going to be a boy. I bet you twenty bucks.”

I shot him a disgusted look. “There is no way in hell I’m going to bet on the gender of our child. That’s just messed up.”

Niall’s expression softened. He reached up and kissed my nose in a loving gesture. “I hope you know I’m just messing with you. I don’t care what the gender of the baby is. As long as it’s a healthy, beautiful child, I’m in.”

I grinned and ruffled his hair the way he hated it. “I just want you to know that we can’t be sure. It’s a possibility I’m not even pregnant.”

“I know,” Niall sighed. Clearly a bit disappointed by that. Once again, I was relieved that he actually wanted another child. I know I did, and I was ready. The two kids sleeping on the bed at the moment had given me a hell of a lot of experience in that department.

“So, what did you and Jace talk about?” Niall piped up, playing with the fingers of one of my hands.

“We just talked about our lives. He got a bit emotional when we touched the topic of Scarlett.” My voice lowered as I went on. “You know he hasn’t dated anyone since Scarlett died.”

Niall pulled back, clearly surprised. “Seriously? That’s a long time.”

“I know,” I nodded.

“Did he ask about me?” he questioned, still quite serious.

“I mean, he complimented on what a beautiful family I have, but that’s about it.”

“Oh,” Niall frowned. “So he didn’t question how you managed to get such a beautiful, strong, buff, amazing husband?”

“Cheeky.” I snorted, pushing off of him. I walked over to a sleeping Nathan and kissed his forehead. He murmured something in his sleep and flipped on his side, drool spilling out of his mouth. I laughed lightly and kissed Nicolette’s forehead as well. She just stayed still and kept sleeping on. I felt two strong arms wrap around my waist from behind.

“ It’s going to be a boy.” Niall whispered into my ear.

I turned around and smacked him with a grin of my face.

“Ow!” he frowned, clutching his cheek where I had slapped him. “What was that for?”

“You asked for it,” I giggled, walking to the suitcases to begin packing.

---

The plane ride was a long one. Nate and Nicolette were not the problem. They were happily occupied with the movie they were watching, and the food they had just received. On the other hand, I had thrown up twice in the course of ten hours. It wasn’t healthy for my body. The acid of throwing up could eventually destroy my lungs.

I had just exited to airplane bathroom after my second fit of vomiting, and went to sit back down beside Niall. He shot me a sympathetic look and grabbed my hand once I was seated down.

“Promise me you’ll go see a doctor when we get back home?” he whispered, kissing my temple.

“Not like I have a choice.” I sighed.

I found myself avoiding the food in fear of just throwing it all up again, but soon my hunger got the better of me and I was craving anything to chew on. Niall watched me carefully as I shoved food into my mouth. Ia couple of times, he told me to slow down, but damn, I was just hungry.

By the time we made it back to London, It was around seven at night. Nate and Nicolette played a game at the suitcase belt to see who could find all the suitcases first. Nicolette won that one, while Nate didn’t give a shit. When we arrived back home, walking through the front door was the best feeling in the world. Nothing could beat the sweet smell of home.

While Niall, Nate and Nicolette started unpacking things downstairs, I called my doctor and scheduled an appointment for a prenatal care session. It was a bit awkward asking for an appointment, mainly because the lady at the front desk has always been really bitchy.

Just after I had hung up on the doctor’s office call, another call came through the line.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Hey, babe,” the familiar voice I loved came through from the other end of the line. “It’s your favorite person in the entire world.”

“Hey, Corryn.” I laughed, settling back on the bed. “I haven’t’ talked to you in a while.”

“Right?” she squeaked, giggling a bit afterwards. “So I went to another ultra sound today.”

“Really?” I smiled. “How did that go?”

“Great,” she laughed. “Harry came too. He told me that the baby looked like a monster and I slapped him.” Corryn sighed. “Do you think Harry and I should get couple training? I think that slap means something for our future, you know?”

I missed having a dumb best friend.

“No, Cory,” I laughed. “I think you’re just over reacting. You and Harry are a perfect match.”

“Oh, thank god.” She exhaled into the phone. “So where have you been lately? I called you like, ten times last week and you didn’t answer. I thought you were mad.” Corryn paused. “Do you think we should go get friendship training? Maybe we can improve our relationship as friends.”

I burst out laughing into the phone. “Cory, the reason I didn’t answer your calls is because I was in California with my family.”

“Oh.” She dragged. “That explains it.”

We talked for an hour or so and it was nice to catch up on our lives with each other. Corryn reminded me of all the good in life. There was never a time I hadn’t smiled when talking to her. She was the perfect best friend, always keeping me busy and on my toes when I was bored. Still, I decided not to tell Corryn about my possible pregnancy.

I just wasn’t sure about it yet, but I’d know soon.

Notes

Ahaha I love writing about Corryn. Shes such a fun character :D. So Can I get some votes and some comments??? I'd appreciate it! I love to know what you guys think! Please don't be a silent reader, either! That's complete poo! If you're going to read my story, you must like it! SO let me know why you like it! Comments always motivate me!!!

Thanks!

~N