“Can you believe we’re havin’ a little girl?” Harry cooed, his voice soft and soothing yet loud enough to be heard over the conversation happening on the TV, filtering out of the speakers and around the living room the two of you have taken to lounging in that evening. With full bellies of Chinese food and chocolate ice-cream, along with a helping of popcorn that was situated in a bowl in Harry’s lap. “Like, It’s been a few hours now, n’like, it’s still not sinkin’ in that we’re having a girl.”

“You’ve been giddy ever since we left the hospital,” you pointed out with a giggle, your hand dipping into the bowl sitting on his blanket covered thighs. “You’re really happy, aren’t you?”
“M’more than happy, y’know? I couldn’t imagine my life to get any better than it is now. We’ve got such a perfect little life, with a baby on the way, and I’m free from work and I’m here all the time and I’m jus’ so excited,” he admitted, turning his head to look at you, his green eyes staring and admiring your side profile; your eyes focusing on the movie he had streamed from his Netflix account, your hair pulled back into a ponytail and hanging down the back of your head, a hand running over your small bump protruding from the t-shirt you had changed into once you’d arrived home from the hospital. “We’re finally havin’ the family we’ve talked so much about, and, I know for a fact, m’life couldn’t get any better.”

“You’re so adorable yet incredibly cheesy, you know that?”

“You love it though. We wouldn’t be married if you didn’t love it,” he smirked, the back of his head rolling back and setting against the top of the sofa cushion. His face directed up to the ceiling as he brought a piece of popcorn to his lips. “M’not even jokin’. You’re lovin’ this side o’me, aren’t ye’?”

You would have been considered a fool if you didn’t love the side of Harry that only you got to see behind the closed doors of the London home you both had taken recluse in when you wanted things to get private; and with your pregnancy, the same walls of the house had become your view for the majority of your weeks. With no exposure to the world outside - a world that was eager to get a glimpse of the first One Direction baby as well as a glimpse of the woman who could now name and introduce herself as Mrs Styles - your life as well as the pregnancy you were enduing with Harry was kept as private as you could make it.
You would have been considered a bigger fool if you didn’t love the side of Harry that only you got to see when he knew you needed cheering up. With your hormones sky-rocketing through the roof and his attention being split between his song-writing - that he had taken upon himself to continue whilst the band was on a break - and you, it was enough to settle yourself in a mood that would lead to silence when he asked you questions and a cold shoulder when he tried to snuggle with you.
You would have been considered an even bigger fool if you didn’t love the side of Harry that only you got to see when in his natural habitat of your home. His figure always in some form of dancing routine when he was found at the kitchen counter, with a frying pan hissing on the cooker with bacon inside, as well as his voice belting out a tune that you would consider as no where near his type of music. His phone plugged into the speakers set around the kitchen, his voice loud and out of tune - unlike how he sounded on stage in front of thousands and thousands of eager and excited fans - rousing you from your sleep upstairs in bedroom.
And when he considered his life unable to get any better than it was at that moment, who were you to judge?
You felt the same way.
“Of course I am, Peaches. I love pretty much everything about you. Bad jokes n’all,” you giggled, his features scrunching and his eyebrows furrowing, creating a dip at the top of his nose. A soft ‘hey’ leaving his lips slowly as he turned his face to yours, taking in your amused stature. “I’m serious. I have a feeling your bad jokes attracted me to you more.”

And you weren’t lying.
On your first date together - after a swap of new boots and a bouquet of flowers - he had immediately cracked open the joke book that had been stored in his mind. And if you weren’t in love with him to start off with, you were by the end of the date, and you wanted more of him; an entertainment system as well as someone you could turn to when you needed a shoulder to cry out and when you needed a friendly and loving someone to turn to when you felt issues arise.
“They’re no’ bad. They’re funny. You laugh at ‘em,” he said, watching your hand dip into the popcorn bowl, the movie playing on the TV being long forgotten as the conversation started between the two of you.

“I laugh at you, Peaches. Not with you, but at you,” you grinned, his eyes rolling in his skull. “I’m sure our daughter has gotten bored of them already.”

It wasn’t an uncommon something to wake up to Harry’s soft voice muffled beneath the duvet, his warm breath flushing over the side of your pregnant belly. He had taken it upon himself, to make sure he kept as quiet as he could to ensure you weren’t woken up, to shuffle down upon the bed in the master bedroom, his bare feet hanging over the end of the mattress and just inches away from being flat against the floor. Without making a sound or any movement to indicate to him you were awake, you would stay mute and almost frozen in your place, listening as jokes and little stories left his mind and formed as words rolling off of his tongue - the same jokes and stories that you would hear on a daily basis; whether it be talking to your baby, or reminding you, or even to one of the boys or your family members that had popped around to visit.
“She flutters and kicks when I say the punchline so, I’d say that’s a given to her findin’ her daddy funny,” he smiled, bringing his free hand across his body and setting his large palm over the top of the curve forming between your hips. As he shuffled himself down the sofa as slowly as he could - making sure the bowl holding the movie snack didn’t spill and cause a mess on the carpet at the base of the sofa - he brought his head to your shoulder, your cheek fitting and resting against the top. His hair soft and tickling at the exposed skin of your neck. “Ye’ like daddy’s jokes, don’t you, poppet? You find me funny, hm?”

As if on cue, a flutter formed in your belly followed by a short yet painful jab to your insides, a smile lifting up Harry’s lips with the corners twitching with happiness. His green eyes shining brightly with love as he continued to feel the kicks against his flat palm, the feeling not at all unfamiliar to him - a feeling he enjoyed coaxing from behind the swell forming between your hips, a home that your little girl was taking up until she was ready and healthy enough to make her entrance. Gracing and turning your lives into a journey with bumps and turns and twists that you would experience together, working through any problems that you come face-to-face with.
“I told you she finds me funny, you donut.”

“I think she’s just moving about to get comfortable, Peaches. I wouldn’t expect her to even understand humour,” you reasoned, a hand of your own reaching across and patting his hoodie-covered belly, the material soft under your fingertips.

“She’s a Styles. She’s got the Styles intelligence. She’ll be saying the alphabet when she makes her entrance into the world,” he chuckled, pressing his lips to your clothed shoulder before sitting up properly. “Speaking of Baby Styles, we need to think o’ names for her.”
“It’s a bit early t’ be discussing baby names, Harry. M’only a good 5 months. We’ve got four more months to wait. We don’t want to have a name set in stone, only for us not to like it when she’s born,” you reasoned.

You were one - and had decided in a moment after being given a name book by Anne - to worry about the name when it was closer to the time in giving a name to someone. The book had been passed through the family, to each new mother that had been blessed with a healthy pregnancy, with Anne being the last one to use it after Harry had been born, with Gemma being the hopeful expectant mother next; yet no one would have thought the youngest Styles child - one who adored and loved and entertained any child that came into view - would be the one to bring the first full-blood grandchild into the world.
“I know, and it’s always safe to have a couple of names in the bag just in case we don’t like any when it comes to us,” he smiled, setting the bowl in his lap upon the coffee table beside his empty glass that held water in just an hour or so before. “I mean, like, can we just start to throw some names around and see how we feel about them? We don’t have to have anything set in stone right now, but, we can whittle down our ideas to a good few, and I’m not going to lie when I say I’ve been thinking a lot about it for a while this afternoon. I haven’t really been paying attention to the movie, to be entirely honest.”
“Harry,” you sighed, setting a hand upon his thigh - the skin bare and soft showing from his shorts - and squeezing his flesh softly, “you’re getting so carried away with this, aren’t you, hm?”

He gave you a swift nod as a wordless answer, a sheepish smile on his lips. The baby between your hips was his first and he was bound to get carried away with the feeling of being a new father.
“What names have you come up with?” You questioned, giving in to your temptation of wanting to know what his mind was conjuring up, a smile ticking at his lips and forming shortly after your question left your lips.

“Well, I’ve got some ideas of like, maybe those common names that you see more frequently. Jess, Sophie, Katie, Isobel,” he started off, his eyes wandering off and looking out the window of the living room that had a view of the sun setting in the horizon with the sky painted pinks and purples and darkened blues. “I’ve also thought of names that are considered unisex and stuff, like Hayden or Alex or Spencer.”

And it was typical of Harry to experiment with names that weren’t gender set, a chance for each name to be considered no matter whether the name is more likely to be for one gender than the other.
“What about naming her after your mum or Gemma? Or my mum?” You offered. His head tilting to the side as the cogs in his mind worked intensely, a mental image of smoke emitting from his ears set in your mind. “Or, we could go for your nan? I know it’s a touchy subject for you, but it would be a sweet reminder of someone we both adored?”

She adored her family, her grandson and you - someone whom she had only known for moments after one little family get together back in Cheshire where Harry had taken you as his official girlfriend - just as much as you and Harry and her family adored her. She was someone that would bring the life and the atmosphere up when it came to spending an afternoon in her presence, and she was always persistent for Harry to take you back to Cheshire on a frequent basis to see her. So she could swap stories about how Harry was a young boy, so she could give you recipes for cakes and sweet treats that she used to make for her grandson on a weekend-basis, so she could make tea and have company with a girlfriend that she knew would make a perfect wife as a perfect addition to the Styles name.
You adored her, just as much as Harry adored her.
And it struck you both when she passed away so suddenly, a tug at the heartstrings when Harry had received the phone call. The strangled and almost choked sob echoing around the bathroom was almost on a continuous loop when your mind went back to thought of Beryl - the loving, caring, sweetheart he called a grandmother.
“I feel like the name Beryl is a bit out of fashion. Like, I’d love to name her after my nan, I really would, but the name isn’t a name for the modern society,” he admitted, his bottom lips being taken between his teeth.

“How about as a middle name?”

“We can consider it, okay?” Harry smiled, turning his attention to your admiring face. “Mum would be so touched by it though. And dad would be as well. My nan was so well loved and like, it’s a bit tough to even comprehend that it’s been a good 4 years since she died.”

“Hey, I know. But, she’ll be so proud of you right now. I bet she’s looking down on you, with all her friends saying ‘that’s my grandson’,” you smiled, bringing a hand up and cupping his cheek. Your eyes staring into his own eyes, glossing and shining beneath the light emitting from the lights around the living room. “M’sorry I brought her up. I know it’s a touchy subject for you,” you whispered apologetically.

“No, no. It’s okay,” Harry smiled, reacting softly to your touch and nudging his cheek against your palm. “I’ve got some great stories about her to tell our little girl. She won’t be absent from her life, I can tell you.”

You gave him a smile, your cheek brushing over the apple of his cheek and wiping the stray tear that dribbled from the corner of his eyes.
“Don’t cry, Peaches. Let’s get back to discussing names, yeah?”
With a nod of agreement, it fell silent between the two of you. Both your minds working to dig deep into the topic settled as a conversation between the two of you, your fingers tapping against your knee as you tried to think up names to be considered for your daughter. The silence lingered, up until Harry felt a lightbulb turn on in his brain.
“Y’know how you like the idea of Greece and going to the Greek islands n’ stuff?” Harry smiled. As you gave him a hesitant nod, he cupped your face in his large palms. “How about we name our little girl after something that you love?”

“That’d be a bit difficult, because, I don’t want to name my daughter after you,” you smirked cheekily, a snort leaving his throat and emitting from between his gaped lips.

“That was cute, but, I meant like, we could call her something Greek. They’re beautiful names and they have deep meaning behind them,” he said, his eyes focusing upon your own. “Evangeline Styles has a pretty ring to it. We could nickname her Angel,” Harry grinned.

“What about Melody? It means music and it would be a sweet little something between the both of us. It’s a Greek name and it means music, y’know? I love Greece and you love music, so, it’s a sweet little joint name that means the world to both of us,” you suggested, his forehead dropping to yours.
“Melody Styles. I like it.”

With a husband who was so invested in music, you wanted something that meant a lot to him as well as yourself. And it was a win-win for the two of you - to consider a name that had a little bit of the two of you behind, not only the meaning, but the decision on top.
“Or, what about the name of the young receptionist from the hotel on our honeymoon? Persephone. That name is gorgeous,” you reasoned, your breath fanning across your his chin. Silence fell between the both of you and you took in the name that had left your mouth, contemplation taking place as you rolled the words around your mind, the name melding wonderfully with the surname bringing you to one person.

Persephone Styles.

“That’s perfect,” the two of you had said, unexpectedly in unison.

Notes