"So... yeah," I mumble, leaving the key of the apartment on the nearest surface. "You know the place, you've... already been here. I, uh- make yourself at home and, yeah, you can stay here while I'm gone too."

"Niall." She calls while I make my way to the bathroom, leaving the door open because I'm only washing my hands. Freya appears at the door frame a second after, sighing as I continue looking everywhere but at her. "Niall, come on. You haven't talked to me since this morning."

This morning was only three hours ago. We pretty much hopped on a bus to Chicago right after breakfast- after the incident during breakfast, that is.

"You know what?" I begin, after turning the water off, "I think I'm gonna take a nap, didn't sleep that well last night. I have... I have a lecture at six though, so wake me up around five, yeah?"

"Okay. Okay, you don't have to listen to me but I'll talk. I need to get it out." Her voice doesn't become any quieter when I walk past her out of the bathroom, assuring me she's right behind me in the empty apartment. Where's Louis, anyway? "I freaked out this morning because I'm-I'm scared, okay?"

With another small sigh, I actually come to a halt and turn around to face her. For the first time I'm confused rather than frustrated. "Scared?" I raise my brows, "The fuck are you scared of? Planes? Heights? You could've just told me that instead of-"

"No, no-" It's Freya's turn to sigh as I start making assumptions, "I'm... I'm scared of meeting your mother. There. I said it."

After a minute of just staring at her, while she stares at her feet with her arms crossed over her chest, I lean against the wall to my left, a small smirk playing on my lips. "You're scared of meeting my mother? You're scared of meeting- why would you be scared of meeting my mother?"

Being scared of meeting my mother still isn't a reason to ask me if I'm fucking crazy after I asked her to accompany me to Ireland, I'm just saying.

She slowly leans her head to the side, like she can't believe what I just said- I honestly feel like I'm missing something. "Um, think about it?" She says, furrowing her brows, "She's an old-fashioned Catholic lady who's never been with anyone but her husband and the only way she thinks people should spend their twenties is by either going to college and earning a degree and-and becoming something in life, or getting married and having fourteen kids and serving their family for the rest of their life."

Freya takes a deep, shaky breath, looking around, pretending she doesn't notice that I'm staring at her with baffled eyes. I had no idea she actually listens to me when I talk about my mum. "And now, look at me," She continues, not lowering her voice at all as she stretches out her arms, "I am a bisexual Jewish pole dancer in her mid twenties that's never seen a glimpse of college nor does she want children in her life. Not to mention I ran away from home at 17 when I found out my father wanted to get me exorcised when I was a child, hail fucking Satan! And stop fucking laughing, Niall."

"I'm sorry," I manage to choke out, bending over and supporting myself against my knees in laughter. I wouldn't blame her if she beat my ass for this. "I'm just- yeah, I mean-" I pause to take a breath, standing back straight in the process, "Yeah, she's-she's traditional. And chances are she won't like you because you're... well, you're slightly less traditional."

"See, even you know she probably won't like me, I don't know why you even-"

"No- let me finish," I grab her arms, partly to get her to stop talking, mostly to pull her closer and give her no choice but to look at me. "I love you. Okay? You know that. I know that. She knows it and I feel like she chooses to ignore it or something, 'cause she probably thinks we won't last. And I want her to meet you because- as far as I'm concerned, you're here to stay."

The look in her eyes softens, even though she's trying to keep giving me a skeptical look, with her arms crossed and brows furrowed. "And what if she doesn't like me?"

"Then that's her own damn problem and she's gonna have to deal with it herself, who even cares if she doesn't-"

"I care!" Freya exclaims, interrupting me, "I do! Me! Hi, hello, I'm Freya and I fucking care if your mother likes me!"

I blink at her several times, contemplating whether I should take a few steps backwards because something about the look on her face is really making it feel like I'm gonna get punched real soon. I never know with her. "I've picked up on that, yes," I tell her, nodding firmly after thinking about how to react for a minute. "I just don't get why."

"Because," She whines, walking away from me and into the living room, "Because... because she's your mother and-"

"If you think I'll feel about you differently if she doesn't like you, then-"

"No, but like-" She groans, looking up at the ceiling; she either doesn't know how to word her thoughts or she's embarrassed of them or it's a combination of both – and I wouldn't be surprised if it was the third. "I want- okay. I want... I want her to like me because she's your mom."

Freya turns around, her hands now on her hips as she watches me- and I don't doubt my confused face is the cause of her annoyed face. "I mean... I love you and- whether you care about her opinion or not, I want her to like me."

That's all that takes me to lean my head against the door frame, and she just looks away, clearly not wanting to seem vulnerable or anything. Baby. "It's-it's probably stupid but it would make things so much easier. For me. Because- I mean if I'm here to stay, as you said, I'm obviously gonna be seeing her whenever you do which isn't gonna be that rare and if it's uncomfortable or tense or-or neither of us want to be in the same room as the other one or all three, I'm gonna have a-"

"Hey." With a laugh that I can barely hold in, I walk over to her, putting my hands on her face, "Listen, my mum... she's-she's one of a kind. She's gonna find a problem with you no matter what you do. It's just what she's like, no one can be exactly as she wants them to be, hell, not even me! You're worried she won't like you when she doesn't even like me, and she gave birth to me!"

My attempt at making her laugh doesn't exactly work, when she only exhales through her nose and keeps her eyes closed and her arms crossed over her chest. "Freya, come on, what are we supposed to do? Get married?"

I regret the last two words as soon as they leave my mouth, when she opens her eyes so suddenly and gives me such a vivid look, I have to remind myself I'm not in a horror movie. "Would that make a difference?" Freya asks gingerly- I know that tone, I know that tone so well. And right now, the tone is suggesting I'll have a wife by the next time I see my family.

"Yeah but, I mean, anything traditional or old-fashioned would make a difference so you could just knit her a doily," I try laughing at my own words, forcefully, but then frown at her; she still has a straight face, but the fact that she looks like she's going to burst from... some feeling, is making me a little nervous. "Freya?" I finally decide to speak up about it, "Are you alright? You look... too alive."

This time she frowns at me for a second- and the fact that she dismisses my stupid remark is another scary thing about all of this. "Yeah, I..."

She shifts in her spot a little, tilting her head to the side and almost looking embarrassed of what she's about to say. "How do you feel about getting married?"

I close my eyes, letting out a breath that feels like it's my last one- I knew I had a reason to feel nervous about the peculiar look in her eyes. "I think I just had a concussion."

"I'm serious!"

"Freya, I..." I pause, searching for the right words because the wrong ones could actually get me in trouble. "I-I am not going to marry you because you're scared my mum won't like you."

"Well that obviously wouldn't be our only reason, come on," She grins at me, seizing my wrists when I try to walk away; I know this is probably a bad time to be observant, but her striped sweater looks oddly cozy. Grey and white look good on her. Everything she says in it sounds like a good idea.

"Think about it," She continues, placing her hands on my waist and then taking a step closer to wrap her arms around me, "You... you've implied more than a couple times that you want me for good, right? So what difference would it make if we did it now instead of in a few years?"

"Freya, we've only known each other for seven months, some people-"

"Some people get married after seven days of knowing each other and then stay together for seven decades," She hurriedly says, "Are you insecure about anything except us not knowing each other for that long?"

I keep looking at her, my eyes evidently widened- I want to ask her is she's gone nuts and if she'd be considering even saying any of this if it wasn't for my trip to Ireland, but... the longer we talk about it the more I feel like I've been dying to talk about it, for a long time, and didn't even realize it until now.

"I... guess not," I shrug- that definitely sounded more reasonable in my head. "But... are you sure, like... are we really serious about this?"

"Yeah, think about it!" She repeats, far more excited than just a second ago, "If we live together again we'll have a reason for it, and- tax benefits," She points out, as if she'd just discovered the eighth wonder of the world. And she might as well had.

"Yeah," I agree quietly, "We'll have to share everything, which means we'll have to share bills and taxes, which means between your ninety grand of pole dancing money and my upper middle class family we won't be poor, which means..."

I look down at her, her and her wide eyes, and- it might be because of the sweater but this is actually starting to sound like a good idea. "You wanna do it?"

"I- if you want to, yeah."

"Okay," I whisper back, nodding, "'Cause- I think I want to."

"I think I want to too."

I blink at her several times, taking a minute to scan her face and, and all of her. We're being impulsive as fuck, and this is a little less than romantic, but I still feel the need to stop talking for a second and take everything in. Take her in. Take everything about her in. The way her left eye is a little grayer than her right one. The way her hair is straight at the roots, and spiral two inches lower. How she has more freckles on her right cheek and bigger ones on her left cheek. How she always raises her right brow when she's confused and then swears she can't lift them one at a time. How her eyes crinkle when she laughs and isn't the least bit embarrassed when she snorts. How I'm 24 hours away from agreeing to spend the rest of my life with all of that.

"Okay, are you..." I blink again as she starts speaking, pulling me out of my thoughts, "Are you staring at me because you can't figure out if you want to spend the rest of your life looking at my face?"

Letting myself smile a little at her words, I take her said face in my hands, "I love your face," I tell her quietly, "I love your face so much. You know why? Because it's attached to you. And you, you I also love a lot."

"...Well, this sure is the proposal of my dreams."

I breathe out a laugh and pull her face up to mine, kissing her lips multiple times before resting my forehead against hers. "I would be honored if you agreed to let me look at your face for the rest of my life. Or your life. Whichever one of us dies first."

"Alright," She grins at me, almost laughing, "I'll only do it to spare some other girl from having to hear you say that."

"The cost is having to hear me say it for the next seventy years."

"Shut the fuck up, Niall."

*******

A few minutes after she's sneaked out of the room, I feel her crawl back into bed; this time with her arms around me and her head on the nape of my neck, since I'm too busy staring at the end table on my side. Trying to figure out the pattern of the lamp my mum made me bring with me. Watching how the time went from 1:40 in the morning to 3:03. Most importantly, the little envelope that contains our marriage license.

"Niall?" I gulp when I hear her voice, and I'm more than sure she felt me do it too. "I know you're not sleeping. Mostly 'cause I can see your eyes are open."

She crawls further up my back, almost lying across my body, trying to get a good look at my face since I'm turned away from her. Blocking me from breathing properly, but it's not like I've been breathing properly since we came from the city hall. "Hey. What's wrong?"

I sigh, blinking for the first time in what feels like hours, making my eyes burn a little. "I have questions," I decide to admit, turning my head to finally look at her too, "About... what's gonna happen."

"Okay, that's normal-"

"And I need short answers," I continue before she could stop me for good, "No elaboration unless I ask for it. Okay?"

Freya presses her lips together, only giving me a nod.

"Okay," I say again, more to myself this time, and look over at the envelope again. "Are you gonna keep your last name?"

"...You're nervous about that?"

"Just give me an answer."

I notice her nod again from the corner of my eye. "Yeah. I'm gonna keep Styles."

"Uh," I frown- I knew that was an option, but not the option I thought she'd pick. I might get that from my mum. "Elaborate?"

"Well, changing my name would take time. Time that we don't have, if we want to achieve everything before the flight tomorrow night," She says, in a strangely soothing voice, "But I'd like to change it when we get back. It will take more money, but, oh well. And in the meantime, we can totally tell your mom I took your last name. It's not like she's gonna ask to look at our papers."

I wouldn't bet on that, I think to myself, choosing to ignore the thought. "Okay," I respond, "Where are we gonna live? We can't live here, it's too small. And horrible. Have you seen the rust in the kitchen sink? Outrageous."

Freya lets out a laugh before I can continue, in fact, dropping her head on my shoulder blade from laughing so hard. "Uh, yeah, I was actually thinking about that. If you want to, we could go to my... old apartment?"

I raise my brow, partly at how weirdly her voice changed at the last two words. "The one you shared with Craig?"

"Yeah, and before you say no, think about it," She says, laying her head on my back, "Three rooms, two bathrooms, living and dining rooms separated, an actual kitchen- no rent, hey, that's a big plus, right?"

"No rent?" I repeat her words, "So that means... Craig owns it?"

"No, Craig and I own it," She corrects me- as if that's any better. "And since he's in prison, it's a shame that the place isn't being used, don't you think?"

"I guess," I shrug. Everything else she's mentioned sounds appealing too – it's almost logical for us to try and live there.

"Tell you what, when we come back from Ireland, we can go and... try it out. Give it a week. So even if you don't like it, you won't spend that much time there."

"One question, how do I break this to Louis?"

"Tell him we're moving to a bigger place where he'll have an actual room, and will be able to stop sofa surfing."

I laugh, smiling genuinely at how she's included my roommate in all of this too. We'll be a married couple with another guy living with us- this reminds me of my weird families in The Sims. "Where is he, anyway?"

"Uh, I texted him earlier asking the same question, and he said he's out with his old roommate," I shrug again, "So he's probably sleeping over at his old place. Kinda scared he'll leave me for him."

"Aw, did you like having Louis around?"

"Yeah, I mean... he's a great sense of humor, doesn't care if things are messy, and does everything routinely. For example, I never had a 'laundry day' or 'pizza night' before he moved in."

"That's awesome actually, it'll be helpful having him around," Freya comments, "So, are those all of your questions?"

"No." I look around, "I mean I swear I had something else to ask."

"Okay well, whenever you figure it out I'll be-"

"No, I have it!" I exclaim, propping myself up on my elbows since she's rolled off me and onto her side. "I, um... earlier today you said something about..." I trail off for a couple of seconds, having her roll closer to me. "About-about not wanting kids in your life? What was that about?"

Freya stares at me for a few seconds, holding her breath, before exhaling and rolling on her back again. "Well, I..." She shrugs, bringing her forearm to her forehead, "I just don't want kids. That's it."

"Why not?"

She keeps staring at me, now with her lips parted- "Are you seriously asking me that?"

"Well, as someone who wants children, eventually, in the future, and also as someone who's going to marry you tomorrow-"

"Niall, you..." She trails off, shaking her head at me, almost looking... angry? "Never mind. We'll talk about it tomorrow, go to sleep."

I close my eyes slowly when she turns away from me, pulling the sheets up to her chin. "Okay, is it because..." I crawl over to her, so our positions are reversed now, "Is it because you don't think we'll have time for a baby when you start school? 'Cause when I get my degree and start working at my dad's firm, there's probably gonna be daycare and everything. And our baby can be with other babies. And then you can come pick it up when you're done with school or, if you have too much work or you're too tired, I can bring it home when I finish."

"You're thinking too far ahead."

"It's not unrealistic, though, like I know it's gonna be expensive and time-consuming and- that's why we're not doing it right now, right? But in a few years, when we have stuff figured out-"

"Niall, it's already been years since... you know," She says, in a rather annoyed tone, "And I'm still not over it. And it's probably gonna take me more than another few years to get over it, unless I go to a therapist or something."

"I know, I know, but lo- wait," I frown at myself; I was convinced she's talking about Craig, but then I realized it still hasn't been a few years since she's broken up with him. "What are you exactly talking about?"

"You know damn well what I'm talking about."

"I really, really don't."

"Don't play stupid," She spins around on her back, barely giving me time to sit up myself, "You said Harry told you everything."

"And I thought he did, but apparently, he's left something out if you think I know what you're talking about right now!"

Freya keeps looking at me the same way – her eyes slightly widened, brows furrowed and lips parted; only now, she seems a bit more shocked than a second ago. Scared too. "Tell me what happened, did you already have a baby or something?"

I look at her again and, somehow, I know that I've guessed right even when I wanted to be wrong so much. It's probably a lot to do with the way her face goes blank, and all the color drains from her face. Yep, I nailed it. And I hate myself for it.

"You..." I trail off, closing my eyes to recollect myself, "...already had a baby?"

"You said he told you everything," She breathes out, through a cry, waving her hand before she puts it over her mouth- I only said five words and she's already freaking the fuck out. "You said- you said Harry told you everything!"

"Hey hey hey hey," I lean over, grabbing her face before she could melt into the mattress, "Calm down. Please, calm down. I'm not really- you actually had a baby?"

She screws her eyes up, trying to turn away from me- bad time to ask her to reassure me I'm not dreaming this. "Whoa, wait, I'm sorry. I'm sorry but you have to calm down, okay? What are you even crying about?"

I try laughing, doing anything to let her see I'm not upset or anything- I actually haven't processed the information enough to be upset by anything. "It's just, it's like I'm lying to you all over again and I'm-I'm fucking sick of feeling like that all the damn time-"

"Calm down!" I shout, swiftly, like ripping off a band-aid. "Calm. Down. If it means anything, I don't think you were lying to me. You thought I knew."

"And I thought you knew how sensitive I am about it so you never asked." She shakes her head, using both her hands to cover her face. "And of course you would've asked, dear god, I hate myself."

"Hey, come on- come on, look at me," I smile, seeing that telling her to calm down three million times actually worked; but it doesn't hit me until she finally takes her hands off of her face to look at me – she had a baby. She legitimately gave birth to a child. The scariest part is that I've never seen a glimpse of this child.

"Do you hate me?" She asks quietly, "It's okay if you do. I understand. I hate myself a lot of the time too."

"Freya-"

"And I get if you don't want to go through with the-the wedding thing, we could always-"

"Freya!"

She widens her eyes at me, unexpectedly, looking a little shocked all of a sudden, "Niall, you are yelling."

I clear my throat, getting a little irritated at this point, "Look, either tell me what happened or-or we'll go to sleep and never bring this up again."

I keep looking at her, and I finally have her looking back at me; I know I'd care if we were having this conversation at a reasonable hour, but right now, when it's past three in the morning, I wouldn't care less if she'd told me she had triplets. "Okay, um..." She starts, but stops to sit up, "It was... it was in 2010. Late March when I first found out I was pregnant, I think. I was nineteen."

Realizing she really chose to talk about it, I sit down properly too, not realizing how much my knee hurt from kneeling. She doesn't look up from her hands once, and I feel like she's gonna keep staring at her lap until the end of the story. "And... and long story short, he didn't want it. At first he begged me to get an abortion, and when I got it through his thick skull that I was not going to do that, he..."

She stops talking all of a sudden, shaking her head rather furiously while staring straight in front of her, "He made me wish I'd done it."

I furrow my brows, my eyes widened in terror at all the ideas I'm getting, while she's sitting there, laughing to herself, still shaking her head. "What? What did he do?"

"Care to guess?" Freya raises her eyebrows too, leaning her head to the side as she plays with her hands. "I'll give you a hint, he didn't start beating me out of nowhere."

Looking away from her, I shift so I'm sitting next to her and we're both looking ahead of ourselves. I feel like this story is going to be easier to listen to if I'm not looking at her. "So... you tell him you're pregnant and he just..."

I notice her nod from the corner of my eye, "If I was smart at all, I'd want him dead now."

"Don't you? 'Cause I sure do."

Freya breathes out a laugh, probably missing the fact that I was dead serious when I said that, "If it wasn't for him, I-I would've probably died in some alleyway."

"Yeah, and when he came into the picture, you could've died in his fancy-ass apartment." I look over at her- no, it wasn't supposed to be like this, I wasn't supposed to make her feel bad for being in an abusive relationship and not being able to get out of it. That's victim-blaming. "What happened with the baby?"

"I gave it up for adoption. What else could I've done?" She shrugs, "At the time going to my mother was out of question, she literally would've killed me."

"I doubt it, if you'd told her about your situation..." I trail off when she gives me an annoyed look; although I'm pretty sure she just wants me to stop with the could've-would've-should've theories. "Dunno, Luke would have a play buddy now?"

Freya rolls her eyes, looking back down at her hands. "I, um, when I was five months, I chose this gay couple from Central Chicago, they live around Lincoln Park, and yeah, that's pretty much all I know about them. Which was good, because I gave birth to it at barely seven months because of my violent pregnancy."

Instead of saying anything – because, honestly, how does one reply to that? – I search for her hand, first touching her thigh because of the darkness, before finding her wrist and clutching her once again cold hand. "Was the baby okay?"

"Yeah. It needed ten weeks in an incubator, but it was fine."

Why are we referring to it with 'it'? "How did they name the kid?"

"I don't know," She quickly answers, shaking her head just as fast, "I don't know the gender either. I asked them not to tell me anything about it so I wouldn't get attached. But guess what? I still got attached. I held it once for a picture, one of the fathers asked for one, I don't know why, and that was enough for me to get attached. Just-just seeing that... that tiny, squishy face and thinking 'wow, I created this' was enough."

She squeezes my hand harder for a few seconds, "And I got this-this folder thing, with their info inside and I spent... weeks just looking at it, scared to open it but then again I wanted to open it so badly, get their number, see where they live, see my baby one more time."

I close my eyes, gulping back what I hope aren't tears, "What'd you do?"

"The stupidest thing I could've done," She shrugs again, "Called Harry. I called Harry."

"Harry?" I repeat- there's the part he lied about. "You brother Harry?"

"Yes, my brother, my fifteen year old at the time brother. I called him, and told him my old address and asked him to come there as soon as he could. I couldn't meet up with him anywhere because, you know, even a month after I gave birth I still felt like I was in a car accident." She pauses to take a deep breath, "So, anyway, he was there in three hours, without mom, as I'd asked him. I gave him the folder as soon as he stopped rambling about how worried he was on his way there, blah blah, and I made him swear on mom's life that, even if he does open it and reads what's inside, he never tells me about it. Not ever. Not even if I called him crying in the middle of the night, begging him to read everything from word to word."

"What did he say?" I ask, almost breathless, and she looks at me, pointing her finger at my face shortly after.

"He looked like that," She says- I must look fucking terrified right now. "He didn't ask many questions- well, he couldn't, because I pretty much threw him out after that. His visit was five minutes long tops."

"What happened after?"

She sighs before answering, "After that... well, I started doing stuff to keep my mind off everything. Went back to work at the restaurant as soon as I could stand straight. Then I started kickboxing first, and when I got back in shape, I started pole dancing too. And that's pretty much it, nothing changed for years until we met last September."

I nod, still without anything to say to any of that, and subconsciously lean my head on her shoulder. "That would... make the kid five years old now?"

"Four," She corrects me, "It's still four. I thought I'd forget the date if I didn't think about it, but forgetting that every single TV channel that day was doing a special on 9/11 is pretty hard."

"You gave birth on the anniversary of 9/11?" I smile humorously up at her, "That's pretty cool, don't you think? Also two days before my birthday."

"Yeah, super cool," She replies sarcastically, pulling at her shirt as I rub the back of her hand with my thumb. "Imagine how cool it'd be if I got to keep it."

"Okay, I... I know this is going to sound crazy, considering... everything," I start- I'm almost too afraid to finish the thought. "But, what do you say, after we get back from Ireland... you get the folder from Harry and we look for your baby?"

I look up at her after she keeps quiet, and the fact that she's looking at me with a completely blank face isn't making anything easier. "It's not my baby, though," She shakes her head, looking away, "It's not my baby."

"Come on, why do you think the guys wanted a picture?" I ask, having her stay quiet again. "They obviously wanna tell the kid about you. They want it to know about you, and it probably does already. Four year olds ask a lot of questions."

She shrugs at my theory- I can feel her giving in, but it's still a long way there. "I guess. I don't know, what good would it do for anyone?"

"Well, for example, you'd get five years of bottled up emotions out." Whenever she doesn't say anything, I know I'm right. "Besides, don't you wanna know how they're doing now? The kid can talk. And walk. And it'll tell you all about its friends in kindergarten. And, if the guys are nice enough, they'll let you visit them every month or something."

"You know, they were pretty nice when I met them," She nods, agreeing with my assumptions, "Invited me to dinner almost every night, bought me shit, they were present at every single ultrasound- it was kinda sad, actually, they'd been together for ten years at the time and trying to adopt for at least five. They were so grateful, promising me they'd treat the little one like royalty whilst treating me like royalty for just carrying it. I felt really bad that they had to wait so long, but I was also happy that the kid was going into such a loving family. That was the only reason I slept well at night, knowing that it's okay and loved and... you know what?"

I look up at her, to see her nodding her head firmly. "I want to visit them. I do. I didn't realize I do until now. I hope they're still at the same address."

"Even if they're not, we can look up their names on the internet, it shouldn't be that hard. Do you need me to come with you?"

"Well," She begins, taking my hand in both of hers, "We're gonna be married by then. And technically, you'll have to do everything with me. For better or for worse, right?"

"I fucking hope that won't be the 'worse' part."

For the first time in what feels like hours, she laughs, genuinely, and shifts so she's straddling me withing a few seconds. I feel her hands on my cheeks and her lips a mere centimeter from mine, "Are you sure you still want to marry me?"

"Believe me," I nod, my lips touching hers as I speak, "I've never been less unsure about anything in my life."

*******

if it wasn't 4 in the morning i'd probably be more emotional about this wow

tell me how you feel about it though pleeeeeeeaaaase :D vote and comment and i love you x