Aria’s P.O.V.

A week later, Maura left for Ireland again. The house wasn’t much different, still quiet with an almost eerie feeling. The kids had slept in our bed for the past week, surprisingly without question. I was taken aback that they hadn’t asked to sleep in their own bedrooms. Niall and I had worked together to put extra safety locks on all the windows in the house after the home scapers had come to fix up yet another broken window.

I hadn’t gone off on Niall when he told me he had quit the rest of press tour. To be quite selfishly honest, I was relieved. Relieved that I wouldn’t have the spend my time alone with two children and a baby in my stomach. Relieved that Niall was by my side again.

My morning sickness only seemed to get worse. Yesterday morning I had vomited twice before breakfast and twice after. It wasn’t healthy and I knew it had to do with the stress. That was a prime explanation.

“Hey.” Niall sat himself on the sofa beside me. My legs were pulled up to my chest with a glass of water next to my foot. “You feeling better?”

“A little.” I shrugged, recalling the vicious vomiting I had gone through less than an hour ago. It was never this bad when I was pregnant with Nate and Nicolette. I reached down and grabbed my glass of water, taking a long, refreshing sip. Niall put his hand over my tummy and rubbed it, smiling to himself.

“Can’t believe there’s another Horan waiting in there,” he spoke softly, before bending down to kiss my shirt covered tummy.

“Are the kids still asleep?” I asked, running my fingers along his jawline. He nodded and pressed his face into my neck, breathing against my skin. I wish things could always be this peaceful, this calm and sweet. No worrying about anonymous text messages or dead birds by the window or the death of our children. Unfortunately, my life wasn’t so grand. Niall pulled away and opened his mouth like he wanted to say something.

“Erm…”

“Yes?” I smiled lightly, waiting for him to speak.

“I kind of have a confession. I did something in California.” he cleared his throat. The seriousness in his eyes lowered my mood almost immediately. “Promise you won’t be mad?”

“Depends on what happened.” I told him, sitting up straighter.

“I kind of got a tattoo.” he mumbled, almost to the point where I couldn’t hear him. But I did. And I smiled.

“Really?” I tilted my head to the side. “Where is it?”

Niall stood up and pulled the hem on the side of his sweats down just a bit. There was my name, inked into his skin in black, elegant calligraphy. It was small, but it made me want to melt. The gesture was so sweet of him. I knew that he hated the idea of needles being pricked into his skin, so the fact that he had gotten the tattoo, let alone a tattoo of my name, was more than amazing.

“Do you like it?” he asked, a nervous glint in his eyes. I stood up and pecked his lips lightly, running my finger over my inked name on his skin.

“I love it.”

“Oh, thank god.” he exhaled, adjusting his pants back onto his hips. “I’m pretty happy with it. It turned out exactly how I wanted it to be.”

“Did it hurt?” I asked, wincing a little at the question.

“Like hell,” he answered, expressing the profanity. “But it was definitely worth it. I don’t regret it a single bit. Especially because you like it.”

“Can I asked you a question?” I took his hand and pulled him back onto the sofa. He nodded and waited for me to go on. “Why now? What made you suddenly want a tattoo of my name?
You’ve been degrading the idea of tattoos for years.”

“It was the day you called me and told me that Chrissy was shot. I don’t know. I guess I just realized that I couldn’t live a single second not knowing you were alive and safe. I thought I had done everything to show how much I love you, but I felt that when I got the tattoo, it raised my love for you even more. I debated over it but Zayn and Louis convinced me to go for it.”

“Aww,” I cooed, ruffling his hair. “That’s so sweet of you.”

“I know,” Niall grinned cockily, suddenly wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling me onto his lap. “I love you.”

“And I love you.” I reciprocated the passion filled words, smiling at him. I studied his face, noticing that he looked tired, and that his eyes were duller. I’d been so drowned in my own stress that I hadn’t noticed Niall was going through the same thing. I felt his lips on mine, pulling me out of the trance his beautiful face had put me in. He kissed me hard, his hands moving up to grip my dirty blonde hair. We kissed a bit more, and then Niall pulled away.

“I feel like making pancakes today,” he announced, sliding out from my straddle. He walked into the kitchen and out of my side. I counted to three, waiting for him to ask me where the pancake mix was. He never knew where anything was, except the bathroom and his bed.

“Aria, where’s the pancake mix?” he called from the kitchen. I smirked to myself at how I had called that out way ahead, then answered.

“First cabinet on the top, second shelf behind the Nutella.”

“Thanks, princess.”

---

After breakfast, the kids were full of energy and could barely sit down, chasing each other around the house, playing tag. Nicolette screamed and changed directions everytime Nate caught up to her, causing him to crash into sofas and trip over his own two feet. I tried to get them to stop, knowing they would hurt themselves, but Niall stopped me from doing so, claiming that they were just having fun. And then he called me a party pooper.

So to prove to him that I wasn’t a party pooper, I rounded up the kids and grabbed a bag of water balloons from the closet when Niall went up to his office to work on negotiations for his absence at the conferences.

Nicolette, Nate and I sat down in the grass and filled the water balloons up with freezing cold water. We must have done two buckets worth of water balloons. Then, I told them to hide against the wall right outside the backyard door and throw the water balloons at Niall when I brought him out. My little devils agreed, each grabbing two water balloons and went to hide.
I dried my hands on a kitchen towel before making my way to Niall’s office. I knocked on the closed door and stepped inside. His back was turned towards me, and he mumbled to himself, hard at work.

“Hey, there’s a family of ducks outside.” I know. Lame cover up. “Come and see.”

“Just a sec, babe.” he held up a finger and kept on writing.

“Come on, Niall. You have to hurry or they’re going to leave.” I whined, jumping up and down beside him. He groaned and set his pencil down, spinning around in his chair to face me.

“What do you want?” He moaned childishly, poking my nose.

“There’s little duckies outside. Hurry, the kids are waiting.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him out of his seat, all the way downstairs. He made it really hard for me, dragging his feet and purposely tripping himself on the stairway so I would freak out. But eventually, we got to the backyard door and I pushed him in front of me.

He stepped outside and four large water balloons smacked against body, drenching him on the spot.

Niall screamed like a little girl, his laugh higher pitched than Nicolette’s.“What the f-”

The kids and I started cracking up, covering up his curse words. He turned back to me and shook his head, his eyes narrowing.

“You really shouldn’t have done that,” he hissed, then grabbed four water balloons from the bucket and chucked them at me. One missed while the other three soaked my body, and the one that missed hit Nicolette. Nicolette screamed and grabbed a water balloon, attempting to throw it at Niall, but she missed miserably and hit Nate instead.

And that was the beginning to a very brutal water balloon fight.

Niall and Nate against Nicolette and I, we threw water balloons at each other, and the wind of the mildly cold day made us shiver very quickly. I barely noticed it, though. It was hard to notice the cold when you were busy trying to dodge water balloons being chucked at you everywhere you looked. When we ran out of water balloons, I dried my feet off on a towel before running inside to get everyone else towels. Niall and I dried the kids off before drying ourselves off, then brought them inside to get warm.

Nicolette and Nate were laughing and talking about the water balloon fight, and how they had totally beat each other. Niall and I laughed along. I sighed. Finally a happy day together as a family.

I took the kids up to get a shower and Niall suggested he order pizza.

“Get cheese with pepperoni on top.” the kids instructed from the top of the stairs as I attempted to drag them to the bathroom.

“Aye, aye, captains.” Niall winked at them, then went to the phone.

Nicolette and Nate were especially hyped up after the water balloons, and splashed around in the bathtub, trying to start another water fight. They screamed at each other until I yelled at them and threatened to take away Nate’s crayons and Nicolette’s beloved food.

Once I had gotten them dressed, I gave a quick blow dry to their hair and took them downstairs. Niall was in the living room, watching a football game, yelling at the television.

“Go, go, go!” Nicolette mocked him while Nate snickered. “Damn it!” she yelled, copying Niall’s words when Ireland lost a point.

Niall turned around and I looked at her. Did she really just curse? Then again, she was just mimicking Niall, so it was then him who I turned to look at with fire in my eyes.

“Colette, hon, that isn’t a good word,”NIall tried to tell her.

“Damn it?” she questioned, cocking her head to the side.

“What’s damn it?” Nate asked. My eyes widened while Niall on the other hand, tried not to snicker.

“Do not say that, both of you. “ I told them sternly.

“What?” Nicolette got a devilish grin on her face. “Damn it?”

With that, she took off, running on the house screaming, “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!”

Niall started cracking up when Nate starting running after her, yelling the curse word loudly. I walked over to Niall and slapped the back of his head, but even I was starting to grin. Call me a terrible parent, but it was hilarious.

“This is all your fault.” I groaned, slapping his head again.

“Geez, woman.” he caught my hand. “I’m losing brain cells here.”

“Maybe then you’ll gain a few smarter ones that’ll tell you when to shut up. For fuck’s sake Niall, they’re four years old. They’ll catch onto anything you say.”

“But I cuss all the time. Why are they copying me now?”

“I don’t know,”I sighed, trying to stop myself from grinning. “But watch your mouth next time or I’ll chop it off.”

“Brutal.” he snorted, before chasing after the children. He brought them back, holding them by the waists, one arm looped around each of them. Niall set them down on the couch and made them swear not to say the word “damn” ever again. Nate behaved and promised, while Nicolette just kept laughing.

When the pizza arrived, we were all starving. Nate took two slices of cheese pizza as did Nicolette, and the two of them sat down at the dining table and devoured their food. The four of us sat together and talked about absolute crap, but it was good crap. Nicolette explained that one day, she would create an animal that was a combination of monkeys and pizza, and added that “you could eat right off of it!”

Nate just rolled his eyes and tried to tell her that you couldn’t combine animals and food together, huffing at Nicolette when she refused to listen.

After lunch, Nate and Nicolette went to watch Despicable Me in the living room while Niall and I cleaned up in the kitchen.

“They’re going to be great kids when they grow up, don’t you think?” Niall smiled, running one of the four plates under the tap water.

“I know they will.” I agreed. “Though Nate will probably be the more sensible one.”

Niall shot me a mocking look. “How do you know our daughter won’t create a pizza monkey one day? Just watch, it’s going to happen and then she’ll rub it in your face because you have no faith in her creative ambitions.”

“And I will rub it in your face when she doesn’t.”

I stuck the half full pizza box in the refrigerator and closed the door, propping myself up onto the kitchen island and watched as Niall rinsed off the plates.

“Why are you staring at me?” he asked, still turned to the sink.

“What makes you think I’m staring at you?” I shot back.

“I don’t know. I can feel it. It’s one of my superpowers.”

“You don’t have superpowers,” I snorted. “Get over yourself.”

Niall turned around and splashed me with water from his wet hands. I spit at him in return and he cracked up. “That was for telling me I don’t have superpowers.”

“I was just kidding. You’re everybody’s hero.”

“Aww,” Niall fluttered his eyes at me. “Thanks babe.”

I giggled, and my eyes drifted over to the laptop near the refrigerator.

“Hey, why do we always keep that laptop on?” I questioned, gesturing to it. Niall looked at it, then at me.

“Don’t know. Maybe we should start shutting it down. It’s a waste of battery.” he said. I went over it and held the power button down, shutting it off. The camera light blinked a few times, which was a bit weird, but I figured it was because of how long it had been on. Once the camera stopped blinking, I closed the laptop and unplugged the battery plug from the wall.

“Let’s go watch the movie with them,” Niall suggested, putting an arm around my shoulder. Together, we went into the living room and sat next to Nate and Colette to watch the movie.


XX’s P.O.V.

“Damn it, lost them.”

“What?” “Wait, where’s the camera?”

“Fucking shit.”

“Well, are you going to tell me where their damn kitchen went? They were there just a second ago.”

“Blondie shut it off. Stupid bitch.”

“They’re both blonde.”

“Aria.”

“Oh,” Pause. “Do you think they know about the camera?”

“No, Niall just said that it was a waste of battery.”

“Move from the chair, let me take a look.”

“They have Skype on their T.V. Connect to their T.V.”

“Okay. Give me a second.”

“Aw, look. The cute little family is watching a movie together.”

“Do you think it’ll be noticeable that the camera’s on?”

“Doubt it. They’re pretty oblivious. Stupid famous people don’t know shit.”

“Aria’s pretty clever, though.”

“Yeah right. She walked into her own death trap the last time. Literally, she left Niall’s apartment at dawn, as if she didn’t expect to get kidnapped right then and there.”

“Good point.”

“Hey, they have a T.V. in their room. I just connected to that, too.”

“Why didn’t we think of this earlier?”

“Dunno. Good idea, though. We’ve got three rooms under surveillance now.”

“Hold on. Go back to the living room.”

“Okay. There they are again? What are you looking for?”

“They fixed up the window. the one that the bullet went through.”

“Fuck, don’t remind me. I can’t believe the bullet didn’t hit one of the kids.”

“Yeah. I haven’t forgotten to beat Cody up for that. He practiced an entire week shooting at targets yet he couldn’t hit any damn part of the kids’ bodies.”

“Don’t beat him up too bad. We still need him.”

“Such a shame. That bullet was the perfect chance.”

“Best we can do is keep up with them. We’re connected to the T.V.’s, and when they turn the laptop on, well be connected to that too. What else?”

“We still have their phones, too.”

Notes

Who caught the name? As in, the name from Little Steps... Cody Kendrick anyone?

Obviously there is more than one person involved in the destruction of Aria and her family, and now one person is has been identified. This is probably the most important chapter yet as to who is behind all the killing.

So, the televisions and the laptop are tapped. So are the phones......................................

Keep watch for the next chapter! Thanks to anyone who read Waiting for Superman, by the way!