Usually, you’d be able to relax, or tidy the kitchen from the night before, perhaps even sit outside to soak up some of the glorious sun. But no. Today, circled on the calendar in a bright red ink it is noted that you have a doctors appointment. Meaning that you have to leave your cosy little haven and discuss your health. Something, as of late, you’ve been keeping an eye on. 

While this was just a regular three month check up, you know that the words which still weigh you down so heavily, are bound to be mentioned - loss, grief, miscarriage. Even the soft and caring “so how are you doing?” was going to be tough to get through. Despite your recent troubles, your doctor has remained good natured and kind during your appointments. She respects you and your situation, and has been of great assistance medically and emotionally in the past year or so. You don’t mind the company, but rather dread the conversation awaiting you.

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You head out the door after making minimal effort to look better than you did earlier. What need was there to get dressed up when were just going to go to the doctors, come home, and cry? As per usual. You would laugh at the routine you’d accidentally twisted yourself into, but it’s hardly a laughing matter when your husband has to console you for the rest of the week.

Your appointment is 12.30 sharp, and you’re ten minutes early, focusing on the list you’d written in haste a few days prior which had been stuffed into your jacket pocket. It was easier to bring up your list of concerns to the doctor, if it meant you didn’t have to talk about them. This month? Feeling faint, headaches, little energy, irregular periods. All part of the grieving process, maybe.

Maybe not.

“Y/N Horan?” you hear your name called, and tuck the list away back into your pocket before standing, smiling briefly as you follow the doctor through to her office.

“Hi there Y/N...no Niall today?”

“No he...he’s out this morning. He doesn’t know, doesn’t like to check the calendar any more than once or twice a month so...it’s just me” you admit. You didn’t need Niall cancelling his plans and getting uptight and worried about you. It’s better this way, you reckon.

“Well then, it’s your appointment and this of course is all confidential. I hope he is still being supportive?” She speaks calmly, but with a hint of speculation in her tone.

“Yes! Absolutely. He’s great. Just wanted to do this myself. He had plans this morning and I’ve been doing better so...” you tail off, wondering how on earth you will handle this when you return home. You halt that thought with a quick smile directed at the woman sitting opposite you at her desk. “Yeah. He’s the best.”

And he is. Through the last year he’s been nothing but heaven-sent. Holding you close, making sure you rest, eat, and get out of bed on those days that just seemed too hard. You know how much he has suffered too and yet he’d been your rock.

You know that he’s cried at night while he thinks you’re asleep.

Losing one child in the early stages of pregnancy had been bad enough. You’d taken so many tests which had turned out negative, until one finally stated “positive” and “3 weeks”. You only carried that baby for two more weeks before you lost them. You’d cried, he had cried, you took a break from trying, praying that you would heal together and that next time you’d be luckier.

And barely 5 months later you fell pregnant again. You’d thought you were out in the clear at 7 weeks, getting ready to start telling your closest family and friends. 

However, instead of calling people to tell them the good news, an ambulance was called, and your bloodied bedsheets were thrown out. In the space of 6 months you’d lost two babies. Two tiny baby Horan’s, who you had promised to give the world to. Both ripped from you in some sick twist of fate. 

It wasn’t fair.

“Well good!” Your doctor chirps, dragging your from your thoughts. “I’m glad. It seems you have a great support system at home. Now, are there any queries you-”

“Yes!” you blurt out, before cringing at your own eagerness. You fumble with your list before handing it over. She reads it, taking her time to smooth out the crinkled paper and thinking over every possible symptom and diagnosis she can make from what you’ve written. For you, the silence in the room is deafening.

“Okay...so from this, there’s a couple of tests i’d like to run...would that be alright? I could always schedule you in for another t-”

You stop her again in her tracks. “Now is good. Whatever needs done, I can do it now.”

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You take 3 different types of tests, each taking only a few minutes to register results. The thought that whatever is wrong with you is so tangible and potentially serious that your doctor asks for you to take three tests right then and there, is doing nothing for your nerves. You’re sitting alone in the office as the doctor prints through the results, and you wish - for the first time since you first sat in the waiting room - that you’d at least told Niall. And just maybe, that you’d brought him here, too. He always knew how to make you feel better, safe, and calm, even if he was facing the same outcome.

Your thoughts are interrupted as your doctor walks into the room - luckily with a smile.

“Well, one positive result came up for you”

Your heart just about stops with her news. Positive? A diagnosis about something today? Right now? 

Without Niall?

“Oh”, is all you can muster up the courage to say “oh, right”.

“Well I know we spoke earlier and you gave me that list to look through...I thought one of the samples you gave could be used for a pregnancy test.”

Okay, now you really needed Niall here.

The doctor evaluates your reaction and pauses. She shuffles her chair closer and smiles, a true genuine smile. It almost makes you feel better.

“Y/N, you said something about having irregular periods, a couple of near-fainting spells...I wanted to double check just to rule it out but the pregnancy test...it came back positive. I believe that you've just been spotting a little, and you’re not getting the right vitamins you need.”

After hearing the word “positive” you’ve gone blank. You don’t hear much else. It’s the third time you’ve heard this news, yet you’re childless. You swallow back a mix of saliva and bile as it rises in your throat.

“it says you’re between 7 and 8 weeks. I think it’s important we discuss this.”

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Heading home, you clutch the steering wheel, trying to ignore the small pile of paper on the passenger seat in your peripheral vision. Pregnant. Well, you hadn't seen that coming. And your husband definitely won’t either. Your mind is between driving, and wondering how on earth you’ll do this, how you’ll prepare, how you’ll even go about telling Niall because you know the moment you see his face, you’ll break.

It’s a long 15 minutes home. The radio is muted, while the country landscape provides some form of comfort blanket as you worry through each scenario racing through your mind. It’s only 2pm, but you just want to go to bed and sleep away the fogginess of whatever hallucination you're living in. Dream it away and wake up to clearer skies and a sense of understanding.

You roll up the driveway, right next to Niall’s land-rover. You remember when he bought it, not even needing much of the car salesman’s persuasion; “it’s perfect for rural areas, plus big enough to take up to 7 people. Can also fit in any size of child carrier, which we also stock.”

Niall was sold, and at the time, so were you. Now you just see the car and its emptiness. Even if you filled the back seats with shopping or luggage, there was only just the two of you travelling. Well, maybe three now.

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Stepping into the house, you can’t help but already feel your eyes start to brim with tears. Your favourite candle is burning, and you can faintly hear music from down the hallway, coming from Niall’s home studio. You didn’t even mind that it was only 70% soundproof - his talent was unfathomable and you enjoyed listening to him create music as if he was pulling the melodies and chords straight from the sun and stars above.

You shuffle your shoes off, heading over to the studio just to be near him for a moment - just before you fully break. You want to remember him like this; not knowing. Not worrying.

He has headphones on and is scribbling words and chord progressions down. Whether it comes to fruition or not, he thrives on the process. He bashes out a few more chords while you go to take off your coat and move away from the door, when he looks up through a sliver of the window in the door.

He’s surprised, to say the least. Of course, given that he hadn't seen you all day, he’s delighted that he’s finally able to embrace you and spend the rest of his day with his favourite person.

Niall had in fact, been a bit worried when he arrived home to see that you had left in the car. Nevertheless, he decided that spending time in the studio would ease his mind. He’d also been entertaining the possibility of having a pet, a new life inhabiting the beautiful 4 bedroom home you lived in. A puppy, he was thinking - or a kitten if it’s what you’d want instead. He just wants you to be happy, knowing that your true purpose in life is to care for others. It hurts him that you’re barely managing to care for yourself, and that he hasn't been able to give you a child, a little love created by the two of you. 

“There’s m’lover, where ya been?” he opens the door and steps out just in joggers and a casual t-shirt. His eyes are pure sunshine, his embrace warm, open, and loving, until he sees you’re trying to hold back tears. In an instant, his eyebrows furrow as his face deepens with worry. His embrace is softer, kinder, now afraid that one wrong word and he’ll have lost you for the rest of the day. 

Tentatively, he whispers, stepping much closer to you.

“...What’s happened? hey c'mere”

You can only shake your head silently as the overwhelming mixed emotions build up, and so he pulls you in even closer, hoping that it will make things even a little bit better. You can’t be in his arms for long though, and he realises as you weaken against him. The sofa in the studio is already pulled out and he makes sure you're stable enough to sit you there, before kneeling before you.

“you need to sit, Ni. Please, for me.” And this time it’s not just for the sake of his bad knee.

So he sits, taking your hand to hold, rubbing your thumb with his as he faces you waiting for you to stop nervously biting your lip. 

“Baby c’mon, you’re scarin’ me...” Niall prompts you, his own voice shaking now as you both wait for you to get your words out properly.

“I was at the doctors Ni...I, somehow I, I know we weren’t trying but....I’m pregnant” 

Your breath is now held, time ticking by so slowly it feels, as you sit there waiting for his reaction. The wind had most certainly been knocked out of you when you were told. The terrifying prospect of having another chance after the trauma of losing two in just a few months prior, is extremely daunting, and causes for a true silence to be better able to come to terms with the news.

“And i’m scared, we stopped trying because we can’t lose another one...not again.” Your voice breaks as you finally let the tears fall. 

The whole time, he’s been frozen still, his mouth parted slightly and blinking every few moments when another stream of information floods his brain with possibilities - both positive and negative. He can’t quite believe it, all this news coming to him at once leaves him utterly speechless. He’s surprised, not only that you went to the doctors office alone, but that you’re expecting his baby, too. 

He finally breaks the dam of deafening silence as he sees you cry. Your words had previously been muffled in his head ever since you had said “pregnant” when his mind began racing a mile a minute. But now you’re in front of him, crying, and scared of losing yet another baby, something that has broken you twice before, back when he world felt against the two of you and when soft touches and intimacy were coated with what-ifs, and an unmistakeable tension between the two of you.

You weren't sure you could face that for a third time.

“Darlin’, oh darlin’ it’ll be okay...” he comforts you, immediately by your side and holding you close “Did the doctor say the baby was healthy?” 

Seeing you nod through your tears was enough for him, his face lighting up as you confirm that you’re growing a healthy baby.

“Yeah?” he smiles softly “Please don’t cry. I can’t see ya like this. Can’t see the mother of m’child like this...we’re gonna be parents” and in his wonderful charming way, he’s finally able to get a small smile from you. He squeezes you and kisses your temple as he sees this. “This is gonna be it, I can feel it. We deserve this. S’gonna be alright this time. M’gonna look after ya.”

“But what if it’s not alright again Ni..I can’t lose a third...I can’t put us through that again...what if I can’t carry a baby full term and I only ever get to be 8 weeks along! I-” You burst out, confirming Niall’s thoughts that the pressure of a healthy pregnancy was weighing you down already, your past already threatening you with the worst before you even get to envision the best. He’s about to console you further, explaining that you’re just early, you can take it slow, and he’ll be there for you regardless, as he promised when he married you all those years ago.

It’s not until you say 8 weeks, that he halts his words before he’s even begun, and his mouth falls open in surprise.

“8 weeks...8?! Already?! You’ve definitely had a drink or two love, and we’re not exactly tame in the bedroom...’v’never made it this far before...does it not make ya think....that this one is already so strong?” Niall reasons with you, tenderly. Your tears have run down your cheeks and your face remains red and slightly puffy but for now, you’ve stopped crying, considering his words carefully.

“Yeah i guess..it’s just terrifying Ni, I can’t-” you start off strong, but continue your thoughts with your head bowed in shame, whispering “it’s like I’m scared to love them...’

He shushes you, heartbroken that you feel even the tiniest bit of doubt that this time, it won’t happen. That this is just another set up for a certain loss. He kisses your temple, his arm wrapped around your waist protectively.

“Whatever happens, we have each other. we’ll do what we have to do. But ya gotta know that i’m gonna start loving on this baby from this very moment, ‘cause i know we’ve got a little fighter in there.”

And he means it. He intends to keep that spark of hope alive for the both of you until you feel like perhaps there is a happy ending, and that the third time is the charm after all. He takes you upstairs after he’s able to lift your spirits, the studio soon filled with soft laughter and so much love. When you go to order some dinner, he absolutely insists on you making an appointment to see the baby. 

He’s with you through all of your fears as you candidly discuss them together that evening. It’s something that your doctor had recommended, and it means that you’re both on the same page. He can soothe your worries, and you get to tell him everything you know about the baby. It makes it much more real and far less scary when you look at things together. 

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You head to bed together that night. He’s soothed almost every little worry you have for hours and in turn, he’s now an expert on the tiny little love inside you. 

“Gonna get ya some vitamins tomorrow. Gotta keep ya strength up for this little lover” Niall whispers in the darkness of the bedroom. 

“Little lover is a cute nickname,” you muster up the courage to hope and dream, “we can write that on their crib, too.’

Niall grins.

The curtains are shut as you both lay there, talking about all the possibilities you have now as three. He’s pressed against you in the middle of the bed, his hand with his wedding ring on your barely-there belly. You feel safe, comfortable, and most surprisingly of all, excited. The love between you and Niall in this very moment is tangible and deeper than you could’ve ever imagined.