I was giving up.

I knew I had to be unconscious by now and I knew that Eleanor was locked in that room with Ivy and Noah. Stupid idea of mine, I chastised myself. Will had lodged that knife into me and with a sound that I would never forget, ripped it straight back out. I knew he had fled. Not even he was crazy enough to stick around and take a murder charge.

I was all alone. Alone on the floor of this bedroom that I had grown to love. Waking up with Harry to the sun streaming in the huge, bay windows. The scent of the fresh grass obvious, the silence complete serenity. No city, no cars, just the sound of Harry sleeping peacefully next to me, and occasionally the feeling of the long bristles of blonde hair, as it would become obvious that Ivy had crept in at some point in the night, and taken her slumber in between us both.

Her guardians, her parents. But now all I saw was a tall, slim figure. She was a teenager with piercing emerald eyes and a tanned glow on her skin, just like his. Behind her there was a younger boy. His hair wasn’t as dark, more golden brown. His eyes were dark and I saw myself in them. The way that the young girl chastised the boy immediately made me think of Gemma and Harry. How she said she would constantly be trying to hang out with her friends or do ‘cool’ things, but her kid brother would follow her everywhere. Just like these two. I realised then, they were my children, they were Noah and Ivy.

Harry was somewhere in the background, a smile on his face that was the same as I remembered it. His hair was still unkempt, still shiny and a deep shade of chocolate brown. Stress lines were evident in the corners of his eyes, a result of the ageing process, but also, I imagined, the result of the stress of our lives.

Then I noticed I wasn’t there. It was just those three.

I was dying. I was leaving the earth, and all of the things I had dreamt of seeing - Ivy taking her driving test, getting married, having her own children, Noah growing up to no doubt be devastatingly beautiful and Harry and I having to pick up the pieces of the girls’ hearts he would leave broken in his wake - I would never see any of that.

I knew I was slipping from consciousness, but I was still aware of the stream of light that was starting to break morning. How devastating that if it were only a couple of hours later, Harry would have made it. That’s probably exactly how Will planned it. My heart hurt much more than the wound in my side when I imagined how broken Harry would be. I hoped that he would pull it together, for our children’s sake.

Two arms were lifting me up. I had no religious ties but I guess I had just found out whether God was real or not. Somebody or something was lifting me up and taking me to a more peaceful place.

---

(This is written in the third person, you’ll understand what’s happening as you read.)

He had been a complete dick when she had told him.

Louis cursed himself as he sped along the motorway to the small village in Cheshire where he knew his fiancé would be. He’d never understand the close, sister-like bond between her and Annie. Harry was his best friend, but they often went months without seeing each other. Women, he thought. What confusing creatures.

He didn’t mean to freak out. He had just never in a million years imagined a child at this point in his life. That’s why he proposed to her.

The guilt that he would be imposing on Annie in the middle of the night, when the kids were there, consumed him. He would have to answer to Harry who would no-doubt be less than thrilled when he saw how exhausted his wife was after entertaining Louis and Eleanor all night. But he knew Annie would understand. She had had her fair share of desperation with Harry and she knew how it felt to need to see someone that very moment. He would retrieve Eleanor, apologise a thousand times to Annie, and then drive back to his own hometown.

There was something eerie about the house. Louis didn’t envy Harry for growing up in this village. “What the fuck did you do on weekends?” That was the first question he asked when he came here for the first time. That was the difference between Harry and all of the other boys. He had lived more than a sheltered, peaceful, quiet life.

The twin Range Rovers mirrored each other behind the wall of the home. El had taken his car and Louis felt like it was a blast from the past, climbing into the same Mini Cooper his mother had helped him learn to drive in.

Alarm bells went off as soon as Louis reached the door, cracked open on it’s hinges. It was four in the morning and there was no logical explanation for it.

As he stepped inside, he observed the silence. Every light in the home was still on, the television blaring. Maybe Annie just uses that as some sort of a weird decoy to deter burglars. Louis was sure it would be something odd like that that Harry would make her do.

He decided to take the stairs first, and his nerves grew theatrically as he noticed the overturned side table and the lamp laying across the floor. The door of which he assumed was Harry and Annie’s bedroom was ajar. Thick, red fingerprints on the handle.

Louis was paling, and he felt the blood drain from his head. He had no time to call out. He begged, awfully, selfishly that nothing had happened to Eleanor, though the thought of anything happening to Annie was almost just as bad.

His worst fears were confirmed when he saw her lying there. Her white vest was completely seeped with blood.

“El?” He called, finding something left of his voice to do so. He jumped when she appeared behind him, holding Noah. The image startled him, especially since he found out about their own child only hours before.
“No, no.” She cried, and held Noah completely flush to her chest, not allowing him to witness what she could only slightly see through the crack in the door.
“Get them and go into the car. Take them to Anne’s.” He said, finding some sort of strength. She stared at him, absolutely devastated, shell-shocked. “Go!” He repeated, rushing in suddenly and sweeping Annie up off of the floor. He waited seconds until he heard the flush of the engine, and ran down after.

“You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be absolutely fine.” He said, over and over again, through the tears in his eyes. He saw Harry in his mind. It was enough to give him the pace to storm out of the driveway and along the motorway, to the nearest hospital.

---

Harry’s P.O.V.

Shitty bloody films. I hate aeroplanes. I hate travelling. I hate it all so much more when they’re not with me.

Instead of watching Super 8 on the small television screen in front of me, I leant back onto my headrest and flicked through Annie and I’s iMessage stream. It was the closest I could get to hearing her voice for the next hour until we landed.

I couldn’t help but laugh to himself when I read the interactions between us. Things had been so good, it was apparent in these messages.

if i have to watch This Is Us with ivy one more time today, i’m moving out.
Hahaaaa.. what’s your favourite part?
the part when you come home and switch it off!

I grinned at the thought of seeing Ivy. I too had fallen asleep at the sight of my own film more times than I could count on both hands, and dreaded to think what would happen if Noah got his hands on it when he was old enough to understand it, too.

guess who’s ordered chineseeeeeeeee. i’ve saved you some chicken in black bean but i might eat it if you don’t come back soooonnnn .xx H

I laughed at the normality of all of these texts he had forgotten about. I wondered if I could make it back to Holmes Chapel from the airport with enough time to pick up breakfast from the bakery and wake Annie up with it. I could almost see her now. Her brown hair falling over her shoulder as she stirred, her eyes focusing. She’d probably reach for those awful reading glasses and push them up her nose, and complain that her eyes were too tired to work in the mornings. She might get to eat one croissant before Ivy hears I’m there and runs in and jumps on my back. I could just see Annie, sighing but completely content, content that we were home and back together and all of this shit with Will was over.

Notes

Thank you sooooo much for all of your feedback! It was so amazing to read! x