Show Me Where it Hurts

Parenthood wrapped Harry and Ivy together in a bond so close with baby Ivy that it seemed like nothing could break it.

That was, until, One Direction went on a quiet, year-long hiatus. He would talk to her less. Those chaste little kisses on the nose or forehead just to let her know that yes, he was there, and yes, he loved her just as much as he did yesterday, ceased. She’d watch him from her position across the hall in the kitchen, a mug of steaming coffee fixed in her hands. He’d be staring, motionless, seemingly deep in thought, across the living room. He was bored. She could see it. She feared that he wasn’t just bored of having nothing to do, but bored of her. Bored of this life they chose when they found out about Ivy. Harry would hold and comfort his little girl like she was the only female in his life. Annie saw it coming. She hated to admit it, but she saw it.

The way he’d look at her started to falter. He was more interested in going out to bars and nightclubs to try and drown out the voices in his head that said go home, work on it with her.

He detached himself. He flew to L.A. He had too much to drink and his ego swelled to the size of the stadiums his band had become so used to playing. Kendall Jenner was a meaningless fling that never got further than Harry’s belt buckle, but he still kissed her that night. Annie was still so far into the back of his mind that not even her soft voice could coax him off of Kendall’s naked body, as he kissed her soft, ruby-red lips.

But guilt cut Harry like a knife, and Annie knew the second she saw him that he had done something, all those miles away. He had missed his own daughters fourth birthday, for Christ sake, just to escape it all. Just to get away from the girls he was supposed to love unconditionally.

Annie, never wanting to admit to herself that her taut, slender frame, long, bedazzling brunette curls and pink, plump lips were not enough for the man she loved, continued to glide along to the dream she used to live in, in her head. The one where Harry still tell her how beautiful she was every day. The one where before Ivy was born, they could go out and get blind drunk and run along the streets of London together, followed by paparazzi, giving them a great show.

But when Christmas came that year, and the rumours grew as much as the distance between them did, she couldn’t resist opening his texts. Torturing herself. Asphyxiating herself with the knowledge that she was no longer enough. He had disappointed her just like Will did.

Perhaps if Ivy hadn’t have been the catalyst in that situation, Annie would have lasted longer in her three-bedroomed, modest apartment in Belsize Park. But she couldn’t help it. Even after that blistering row on Christmas Day, when she walked out on that home, when all she wanted to do was tear at his skin and claw it his soft face, scream that he had broken her heart and their daughters, she still saw it in him. That gorgeous charm, she still listened to his slow, drawn out voice like it was the church gospel. She was in love with him, and she didn’t get why he didn’t want this cosy - somewhat boring, maybe - life.

But Harry was a tortured person, much more than anyone knew. He realised his grave mistake the second the front door shut to the huge Hampstead family home and he cursed at himself over and over at the fact he didn’t know that sooner. The very second her dark red, pointed fingernails slammed the door in his face, he’d jeopardised, and lost, everything. Including unlimited access to his daughter. Including any kind of access to the woman he loved more than anything in the world. Because, ultimately, he was bored.

Harry couldn’t stay away from her. There was an invisible magnetic field every time their fingers accidentally brushed when they transferred their daughter from each others arms, into her awaiting car seat, back to Dad’s house or Mum’s house. Ivy saw it all, and she knew. She knew that mummy and daddy were hurting more than any cut or fall she’d had in the playground. It was unchartered territory for the young girl, who just couldn’t understand why mum and dad never kissed anymore when they left each other. She could hear the soft cries and sobs that would escape her mothers bedroom, across the hall.

The couple would carry on trying to live parallel lives. When they talked for too long Annie worried that it looked like she was giving into Harry, and Harry just didn’t want to end his next sentence incase she asked him to leave. He didn’t function. There was never any food in the fridge. He filled his face with a bowl of cereal every couple of hours and that fact reflected when he lost weight. Both of them did. Shot from all the stress of trying to hold it all together, to not look heartbroken when inside, their very beings were dark to the core.

It took the memories of how great life used to be to put them back together. All Annie had to see was Harry flicking through hundreds of polaroids on his kitchen table, all from the moment Annie’s bump started to show to a photo of Ivy on her first day of Nursery.

She saw something in him that she didn’t remember. The amorous, loving Harry she fell for. The one who loved his girlfriend like they’d been married for fifty years, defended her like she was his queen, made love to her like she was a piece of art. She couldn’t keep up the act anymore. She forgave him. She had no other choice.

He became the most attentive being she could ask for. He knew what he had to do. He would never forget that long pause Simon had taken when he blurted out that he wanted the band finished with. The feeling of relief when Zayn cleared his throat and murmured, “I do too."

The decision was accepted, but they still had their part to play. Harry couldn’t wait to rush home that night and tell Annie that after only a couple months back together, he wanted another baby. Fuck it, he wanted five, ten, twenty of them. All running around like Ivy would. He could never forget the look in Annie’s eye when he told her to stop taking that birth control. He knew that they were back on top form.

And what better time to take their family on tour. A couple of months after trying, Annie fell pregnant with their second baby. This tour was different. It was harmonious. It was like a vacation with all of their best friends. She never felt stressed. She never felt ignored by him, a little lonely sometimes, but that wasn’t his fault. What she did about it, was her fault. A late-night text sent by Will, coaxing her back in by telling her that sadly, his mother, who she had been so close to, was going to die of cancer. Annie had always been too compassionate, that was her downfall. She opened up, she let him in. She never wanted Harry to find out. That she had shared with Will the deepest news that their first baby scan hadn’t gone so well. Annie didn’t even know why she had done it. Harry was supportive in every way she needed, now. His two arms were there, every night, wrapped around her, and that should have been all she needed.

But she perhaps hadn’t admitted to herself that what had happened between Kendall and Harry had hit her deeper than she’d thought. She found herself picking holes in almost anything Harry did, and she knew it wasn’t just her pregnancy hormones telling her to. That’s probably why she told Will the things she told him. She wanted them to be even, as sick as that was.

That’s the reason she gave Harry when he found out, anyway. There were more chances of our galaxies colliding than Harry and Will, but at a charity dinner, it somehow managed to happen. Of course, Will couldn’t wait to divulge the details of his and Annie’s late night chats, knowing it would land her in masses of trouble. She knew when Harry returned to their table and led her out of the restaurant, a stern grip on her arm, that she’d been rattled.

The truth was Harry wasn’t half as angry as he was hurt. He wanted Annie to trust him again, to talk to him again, not just about things to do with their relationship, but everything. All about an argument she might have had with Eleanor or one of her friends, any time she saw something she liked in Topshop. Any time she sat down and looked at him and simply said, “are you okay, baby?” He’d nod and smile and brush his fingers against her knuckles even if he wasn’t, elated at the fact that someone took the time to ask him how he was. He needed her for that. She was the only person besides his mother or sister that did that.

Annie knew she had been in the wrong. She concentrated all her energy into keeping calm and taking care of the baby, but when she got back to London, she knew she wouldn’t last long. All it took was a few more weeks of milling around, before Noah was born. Harry would never forget that terrifying feeling of being woken from his sleep to a frantic girlfriend slapping him all over, screaming that it "was coming!"

That terrifying moment was amplified a thousand times when he thought he was going to lose her, or the baby. The look in the doctors eye that just wasn’t one hundred percent on whether she was going to make it. He needed him to be a hundred percent, because he couldn’t lose her.

But Annie, being Annie, gave everyone the fright of their life. It took her a while to stabilise, but after Noah had left the confines of her body and was safely placed in their arms of his father, their likeness an eerie mirror between them, she pulled through. Harry would always remember seeing those marroon eyes open up again for him. Of all the beautiful images he had of her in his head over the years, that was his favourite, because he realised she wasn’t going anywhere.

They had underestimated the devilish works of two children under the age of five. Noah screamed all night long, for bottle after bottle, and since Harry was caesarian scar-less, the duty fell to him. He never complained, once, though. He was happy to listen to those tiny screams leave those tiny lungs every night for the rest of his life, just to have Annie and their two children all well and under one roof.

The one thing that stuck out with Annie and Harry, is things never ran smoothly for more than five minutes. Their relationship worked best with that notion, they thrived off of it. They were so good at keeping themselves stable when the bottoms fell out of their world. And that’s exactly what it was about to do, all over again.

Notes

Okay I hope that made a bit of sense, I’ll probably add more to this when I have time! For now I just wanted to move on with the story.. so here is chapters 1-30. All current readers know the drill with this.. so I’ll get writing the rest! :)