*Harry’s POV*

It’d been a week since the paparazzi were swarming outside of Hannah's apartment; not that they didn’t every other day that week. Some days it was better, some days it was worse. The coffee pot finally broke so I went to Starbucks for us every morning. I would spend the night there and come back with coffee, but if I hadn’t slept there, she still kept her spare key the same place that she always had.

‘Spending the night’ is a relative term. In this sense of the word, it meant us passed out on the couch, me carrying her to her bed and covering her up. I would turn to go to the couch, and each night, without fail, she would catch my sleeve or the chest of my shirt and tell me to stay with her. To get her to sleep, I’d go through the motions. I’d pull my shirt over my head and I’d let my jeans fall, and I’d lie down next to her; that’s all. I would lie there and think; that was all that I could bring myself to do. The fact that we had done more than I’d admit to her was weighing heavy on my mind, and sleep didn’t come easily with such a burden. I would kiss her forehead and attempt to let sleep overcome me, but that’s all that we ever did. I didn’t want to push anything and end up ruining more than I already had.

We spent as much time together as we could. She would come with me to interviews and pout when she had to stay home from signings, and then I would pick her up afterwards and she would be fine; everything was fine, even though it wasn’t. Security held tight around her and but she didn’t understand the importance. Hannah had to be just as protected as I was. If a fan decided to pull a stunt, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something happened to her.

~

Even though she lived in an apartment, her room was magnificent. I sat in an egg chair that hung from her ceiling, playing a game on my mobile. She sat in a chair that was built into the wall against her window. One of her wavy curls hung in her face as the rest were tied behind her head and her legs were bent half way to her chest as a book rested in her lap. Pulling the curtains back slightly, she looked out her bedroom window. “Harry?” Her eyes stayed away from me as I watched the lights flashing off of her face through the glass.

“Yeah?” I paused my game and walked over to her bed, flinging my body across and propping myself on one elbow. She closed her book.

“Do you have anything that you have to do today?” She finally met my eyes and dropped the curtain back over her window, blocking out the paparazzi. Turning to me, she pulled the clip out of her hair and let it fall around her face. Even though there were thin curtains and her hair in the way, the light still managed to find her face in the most perfect way.

“Babe, today I’m all yours.” I smirked at her and the smile that spread over her face was as warm and bright as the sun shining on it.

“So we can do anything?” My eyebrow rose and I gave her a skeptical look.

“Yeah, anything sounds good.” She got up and started to walk towards the bathroom. “Where are you going?”

She stopped outside the door. “For a shower. You can take one once I get out.”

“What are we doing today?”

“If I tell you then you won’t want to go.” I scrunched my face as she closed the door. Turning on the music on my phone, I went back to playing my game, attempting to fill the silence of the room that was present when she wasn’t there.

When she came out of the bathroom I stopped what I was doing. I turned over on the bed so that I was on my stomach, facing her. She walked into her closet and I watched her as she pulled out different colored jumpers and, after picking out her orange one, grabbed a white undershirt. “What are you staring at?” I began to climb off of her bed, not taking my gaze away from her.

“Well, I was hoping that I might be able to get some idea of where we’re going…” I had no idea, she’d where that anywhere.

“Go for a shower. I’ll start getting ready.” She chuckled and turned back to her closet, pulling different scarves and holding them each up to her outfit.

“Thank God, because you take forever,” I teased. She stuck her tongue out at me as I walked passed her.

I stood there, letting the water run through my curls. All that I could think about was how perfect she was. Sure, I was a little bit curious about where she was going to take me, but that was no comparison to how focused my mind was on her face coming through that door, and the way her towel barely covered all of her. She wasn’t short, but she was still shorter than me. Pushing the shampoo through my hair, I realized that our love wasn’t perfect because of what we had done; what we had done was perfect because of our love. The feelings that I had for her pushed beyond any feelings I had ever had for anyone else.

I would never get tired of thinking about her, but all too suddenly I had to get out. I couldn’t just stand here. There was nothing wrong except for the silence; it was killing me. As the water washed away my impurities, new ones appeared just as quickly as the others had left. The water became too quiet while the silence rang in my ears. Guilt ran fresh through my veins as I thought about what I was doing to protect her, while, simultaneously, it was eating me alive.

Turning off the water, I pulled back the curtain and grabbed a towel. I shook my hair out roughly before wrapping the towel around my waist and letting it hang low on my hips. I walked out of the bathroom and found her sitting on her bed, painting her nails a bright orange to match the jumper she was wearing. A white and grey scarf hung over it and her hair was gently curled, a few of them falling in her face. I stood there for a moment, watching every movement she made.

“God I thought you were never coming out!”

“Oh shut up. Is it going to be inside or outside?”

“Harry,” she looked at me comically, “it would be a little fruity if you dressed for the occasion…” She chuckled and I pouted at her.

“Well, if we’re going to be outside then…”

“Wear one of your Jack Wills hoods, you’ll be fine.” She smiled at me sweetly and I opened the drawer that I had been keeping all of my belongings in. I pulled out a sweatshirt, undershirt and a pair of jeans and boxers.

Once we were both ready, she grabbed her grey clutch and put on an orange beanie, which reminded me to grab my own. “So now we’re both wearing them?”

“Well, I could pull a Nia…”

“Nope, the beanie’s fine,” she interrupted. She hated flat bill hats. She was always saying that people didn’t wear them; they let them hang off of their heads in funny positions. So naturally, I never wore them.

She kept me occupied the entire way to wherever we were going. It was just small talk but I was totally okay with not having to sit in the silence. I feared for my life a few times; she wasn’t exactly the safest driver, but eventually, we pulled up outside of a recreational building and I officially had no idea what the hell was going on. She jumped out of the driver’s seat and practically rushed towards the building as I hesitantly climbed from the car.

“Come on!” Just by her tone I knew. She was always happy but there weren’t many things that made her this happy. I looked up at the building and instantly turned for the car. I’m dreadful at ice skating. Right as my hand was reaching for the door, two arms wrapped around my waist and linked in front of me. “Please Harry? Come on…” she said. I could feel her cheek squished against my back, “it really would mean the world to me right now.” I felt her cheek bone harden and I knew she was smiling with the knowledge that that’s how she always got what she wanted. I groaned in defeat as she let out a few giggles.

I grabbed her arms and pulled them around my neck, lifting her easily onto my back. As we walked towards the large, obviously multipurpose building, there were a few flashes directed towards us. Besides the slightly blinding cameras, I remained indifferent, being too close to her to care. She, on the other hand, buried her face in my neck, protecting her face from the rest of the world.

Gripping my hand tightly, we started moving again. I stepped with care, knowing that as soon as I lost focus I’d be on my ass for the hundredth time today.

“Get that look off of your face.”

“What look?”

“That look like you’re so frustrated you could kill.” I didn’t look up at her; keeping my eyes down on my skates. “You know it’s easier if you don’t look down at them.” With that, she released my hand and I panicked for a short moment before swaying my hips forwards and backwards, arms flying, and landing clumsily on the ice. I looked up, searching for her. She was ahead, spinning and landing backwards to face me, but was still moving on the ice. Chuckling as she saw my reaction, she came back to me and tried to help me up, only resulting in me pulling her down and both of us laughing as we sat on the ice. Not many people were around, but there were flashed going so I figured I was making a fool of myself in front of the world… oh well.

Once she had had her fun and I had gotten too many bruises to count, we decided that it was time to go. Even though I was terrible, I had still enjoyed every moment that I had gotten to spend with her. How could I not? We turned in our skates and headed back to the car, fingers intertwined. She hid her face in my shoulder, leaving me to be blind again. I smiled and leaned down close to her ear for a moment. “You’re going to have to take a turn at this eventually.”

“Maybe so, but not today,” she muttered against my sleeve. I chuckled and took a second to realize that she hadn’t gone anywhere alone yet. I didn’t want her to. At this time, I realized that I never wanted her to have to go anywhere alone ever again. She could always stay by my side, and she could always hide her head in my shoulder and I would face all of the paps and all of the fans in the world if it meant that she didn’t have to do something that she didn’t want to.

We went back to her house and swapped cars and I drove us to the flat where the boys and I were staying. I found my room with Louis was already unlocked and everyone was being too noisy to be discreet. Swinging the door open, I found all of the boys in front of the television, playing a video game. Louis dropped his control and ran over to me, with an extremely dramatic look on his face. “Harry! I’m so sorry! I accidentally opened the door and they all BOMBARDED me!” We laughed at Louis’ ridiculousness and headed into the kitchen.

Saying a brief hello, I took her into the kitchen to find all but one pizza box untouched. There was a pink bow on top and the box read ‘Love Niall’. She giggled as she opened the box and pulled out a slice. I love that about her. She’s not the type of girl that eats two carrots and a piece of celery and tells me she’s full; she’s the type of girl that lies in bed with me every morning so that we can just look into each others’ eyes until her stomach grumbles and ruins the moment. I would never get enough of that, of her. Watching her eat, she eventually noticed me and turned a bright shade of red.

“What? I was hungry!” I chuckled slightly and looked towards the ground.

“And I wasn’t judging.” I grabbed a slice of my own and began eating.

Once we were done eating, she turned to wash her hands in the sink behind her. I couldn’t resist the need to be close to her and before I knew it, I had wrapped my arms around her waist and my chin had settled into her neck. She didn’t seem surprised. In fact, she tilted her head sideways so that my chin face fit better in the space. I watched as the water swept the suds from her hands; they were beautiful. Suddenly, the silence overcame me and I stepped back, leaning against the counter after placing a light kiss on her shoulder. She grabbed a dish rag and turned around, drying off her hands. I couldn’t help but notice the goose bumps that had risen on her arms.

“No inappropriateness I assume.” We turned towards the doorway to find Liam standing there. He walked over and picked a left over slice out of our pizza box before closing the lid and looking up at us curiously. “Niall… left this for you?” His voice was skeptical, but I was glad that he was here to fill the silence with something other than nothing. I smiled at him and wrapped my arm around her shoulder as she gave him a meek smile.

“I guess he thinks that he’s just as happy for her to be back as I am.” I grinned at Liam before pressing a kiss to her hair.

“Well, Louis sent me in here to be the PDA police so…”

“If the ‘P’ stands for private then there’s hardly need for police and according to my mother, this would be known as a ‘private’ residence so…” She held out the ‘so’ for quite a while as Liam and I both looked at her a bit surprised. Her mother was a real-estate agent so of course she would know. Amusement suddenly came over Liam’s face as Niall also walked into the kitchen.

“Alright, Louis is getting a bit worried that he’ll have to disinfect the kitchen after long…” Niall gestured towards the door and she looked at Liam and me smugly before walking to Niall, kissing him on the cheek, thanking him for the pizza and retiring to the living room.

“Well then…” I went to follow her, stopping at Niall, “I already fought off Zayn,” I kept my face serious, “don’t think I won’t pin you to the ground and beat you within an inch of your life.” I let the smile creep on my face as I playfully smacked Niall’s chest and passed by him. I heard Liam chuckle from behind me as I walked into the living room, where she had already stolen one of the boys’ remotes and was proceeding to whoop their asses at Mario Cart. She was sitting on the floor like one of the guys; which is really all that she grew up with so I wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t like she was an only child; she had a little sister, but they were six years apart so she had a few girl friends and the rest were me and the guys. Obviously not THESE guys, but guys none the less.

“Yes!” She threw her controller in her lap and danced in victory.

“No!” All four of my band mates shouted at her and turned to glare at me at the same time.

“It’s not my fault she’s good.” I shrugged my shoulders and jumped over the back of the couch and put my legs down on either side of her.

Before long, the other birds showed up and I only had one complaint about them, and that was that they complained… all the time… about mostly everything. Louis was getting frustrated because El kept running her hands through his hair and down his shoulders and kept telling him that video games were the main source of his anger issues. Dani was trying desperately to get Liam’s attention by stuffing her head in his neck and whispering in his ear, to which he shrugged her off and powered through Zayn’s pitiful state of mind.

Zayn and I had had a serious talk in the previous days. Trish wasn’t present. Not only had she gone to study abroad in America, but had done her best to basically tell him that it was a satisfying fling that had to come to an end. We’d had the conversation where he told me that it didn’t seem to matter what he did because he would still end up with no bird and no hope and I would be the supportive friend that assured him that things would get better but he’d better not hope on taking the one I love away from me because we all have the person that we’re supposed to be with and I’d found mine and that his just hadn’t come around quite yet. I was fairly positive that the girls had practically shut out Trisha for what she had put Zayn through, especially when their happiness made it easier for me to have the one that I love. I’m fairly positive that the girls had practically shut out Trisha for what she had done to Zayn. On one hand, I was hurting for my friend, but on the other hand, I was glad that she was as adamant as I was about protecting my friends and our relationship.

Eventually, she too got sick of playing video games, which resulted in Louis putting on a film. Niall plopped down into the recliner and El had her legs curled while her head rested in Louis’ lap on the couch. Dani sat between Liam’s legs on the floor in front of me. I was up on the couch where she came over and crisscrossed her legs over mine, leaning back against the arm of the couch. I leaned towards her so that my head rested on her chest. It was actually quite comfortable. I looked over to Zayn who had placed himself on the floor in between Louis’ legs and Liam and Dani. I couldn’t really help but feel bad.

About half way through the movie, her grip on my hand loosened and I looked over as her eyes began to flutter closed. Her head began to tilt backwards and I shifted in my sear just enough for her head to redirect and fall gently into my neck. I was extremely careful not to disturb her. The movie played on, but I was no longer paying attention. I was more focused on the soft, warm breath that steadily hit my shirt. I attempted to show no emotion through the movie, not wanting to wake her. She only rustled once, only to move her head so that her breath now tickled as it ran down the side of my neck and across my collar bone.

When the screen went to black, El roughly climbed off of the couch and began to reach for the woman lying calmly in my arms. I held up the hand that she had now completely dropped and motioned for El to leave her be. There wouldn’t be any harm in her sleeping here tonight. Sliding the same hand under her knees and the other behind her back, I lifted her easily, bridal style, and murmured a quiet goodbye to those headed towards the door to the flat. Louis had Eleanor by the hand, leading her towards his room; she had a tired look in her eye.

“You know she’s not going to want you banging her while she’s asleep,” Louis teased.

“Funny, yours doesn’t even want you fucking her while she’s awake!” I quickly whispered back. Louis pouted and El laughed as I walked through my door, slowly pushing it closed with my foot.

I gently placed her onto the already drawn down covers, messed from the last time I’d slept here. She lied with her knees pulled half way to her chest like she always did. Realizing that she was still wearing what she had worn to go ice skating I decided, against my better judgment, that I had to wake her momentarily to find her something to wear. Crouching down next to my bed to meet her face to face, I let my fingers trace a pattern down her arm. She inhaled sharply as the goose bumps arose behind my fingers. I could tell that she was still really out of it.

“Babe?” She muttered something unintelligible as a response. “Do you want to keep your jumper on?” I didn’t speak so much as a boyfriend, but as an adult. She shook her head as she began tugging at the material on her arms. Once she had it off, she threw it past me and onto the floor. “Sweetheart?” She muttered the same nonsense. “You’re not supposed to sleep in jeans.” Her hands instantly went to work on the button of her pants. “I’ll get you some sweats.”

In the time that I had taken to go to my dresser, pull out a pair of sweatpants and walk back over to her, she had gotten the covers pulled tight around her, still leaving some for me. I looked to see that she had thrown her jeans in the same direction as her jumper and was now breathing steadily in a deep sleep. Careful not to wake her, I stripped down to my boxers and silently slid in beside her. Too exhausted to worry about the silence, I leaned over to kiss her hair, neck, and shoulder before letting sleep take over.

~

She’s the girl that stands backstage; you only know that she’s there if you’re paying close attention. She pulls everything together and makes it happen, but she doesn’t get credit for it, and she doesn’t ask for the credit either. She blends in and she’s just waiting for someone to come along and make her stand out; make her be the one that outshines all others. I was the person that could do that; I knew that I was. I just needed her to trust me, forgive me… love me.

There was no hiding from the media at this point, and they weren’t going easy on her. I kept my eyes on Twitter and tried hard to keep her eyes off of it. How many awful names were there to put on one person’s shoulders? Fans were generally unhappy with whomever I was with, but her face wasn’t new. I saw pictures at news stands of us. Some were old and some were newer, but everyone had something to say about it just the same.

Everyday I heard a new rumor. There was only one that sent my head spinning. I saw it in a magazine stand, picking it up with infatuation: Harry’s Back with His Baby Mamma? I expelled the thought of any possibility from my mind. If she was, she would have told me long before I read about it in some magazine, and she would have been a lot more pissed at me a lot sooner.

Besides that, the week was perfect. The weather was chilly, but we didn’t mind. Her twentieth birthday was in days to come, the 23 of December and I had everything planned perfectly. We had spent the week with the boys also and so we were all planning Christmas at the flat while the holidays passed. After that, we would spend New Years at an event that we were expected to make an appearance at anyhow so why not make it a party, right?

What I was looking forward to the most was tonight. It was only the 20th, but all of the events were so close together that I wanted each night to be special. We were celebrating her birthday tonight, and although I hoped that she had fun at the other events, I was hoping that none would top tonight.

Notes

I'll hopefully have more soon. So much homework it's making my head spin. I'm trying to write longer chapters so that there's more to read when I post. Thanks for all of the wonderful feedback :)
xoxo Hannah <3