Archive of Our Own

With every oncoming gush of wind, swarms of leaves cascade off the trees lining the streets. It's almost like snow, but better because leaves don't tend to inconvenience your entire existence. Their colours are mesmerizing and if you're lucky and get to step on a bunch of crunchy leaves, it only gets better.

Richmond looked like any other suburb on Halloween night. Jack-o-lanterns standing guard by the front doors, candles inside of them slowly alerting their appearance as the sky gets darker. Cheesy, sometimes even gaudy decorations peeking out from behind windows. Some kids already trick-or-treating, clumping together in groups with laughter chiming off around them as they compared the contents of their goody bags. And, of course, leaves everywhere.

A stone's throw away from London, just a few miles really, and life seemed still, content, a stark difference to the hustle and bustle of the metropolis nearby. Most of the houses lining the streets - terraced, Georgian, semi-detached - were occupied by families. Some old, living in the same house for decades upon decades, growing and changing with this place. But loads were young, only moving here a couple of years ago to extend their little families, to settle down and put down some roots.

There was a time when these very streets were Zayn's favourite place in the world. Normally, he'd park his car in the driveway of the detached Georgian house near the end of one of many nearly identical streets just like he does now, check his email on his work phone, reply to anything that couldn't wait till the next day and put the work cell on “Do Not Disturb” before going inside and letting all stress and tension dissipate into thin air.

That was before.

Now Zayn still sits in the driver's seat, not looking at his phone though but chewing at his lip, wracking his brain with what to say when the doorbell announces his presence. Should he act like everything's fine? Like nothing's going on at all? Like there isn't a weight on his chest so heavy he finds himself unable to breathe some days? Does he adopt the face of a polite stranger? Is it even possible with all that they've been through?

Zayn's pondering is interrupted when the front door opens and Harry peeks out from the inside. The pang near his heart Zayn feels next is most likely a yet undetected medical condition, he concludes. It's called into question right when two little girls try to look outside too, each one leaning over from behind Harry's legs, one light-brown, one dark-haired head with curious eyes peering at the car. That's not one but two reasons for Zayn to stop overthinking shit and get out of his car, plastering a smile on his face that's half-pretend and half-relief.

“Dad!” they both screech at the same time, running towards Zayn as fast as they can. He catches each one with an arm, squatting down and hugging them close to his chest.

“Hi, Erin. Hi, Sage,” Zayn says between kissing each one of his daughters on the head. “I missed you so much, sweethearts. Are you ready to go trick-or-treating?”

“Yes!” Erin, the older one of the two yells. “But Daddy said I can't eat any of my candy until tomorrow after lunch.”

Zayn chuckles, as Erin continues to pout. “Don't worry, we'll be sneaky and have some when we get back, yeah? Just a little so Daddy doesn't get mad and the tooth-fairy actually has some teeth to find later. You don't want them all to rot.”

“Ewwww!” the girls draw out.

“Can we go to the movies tomorrow?” Sage asks, her big green eyes open, brimming with child-like honesty. “We can all go together. I want the big popcorn with the pictures on the bucket.”

Zayn's chest deflates, sighing softly as he tries to come up with a lie to tell his child. Again. “Together” used to mean something vastly different at a time not that long ago. Now it resembles more another life rather than a former part of his current one.

“I don't know, honey,” Zayn replies, the words not completely dishonest. “I'll ask your Daddy and maybe the three of us can go.”

“But I want everyone to go,” Sage's mouth curls downwards. “ All of us.”

Zayn bites the inside of his cheek. “Sagey, I don't believe we can do that. But let's not think about tomorrow, okay? It's Halloween! Aren't you girls excited? I'm surprised you haven't got your costumes on yet. Power Rangers, I must say I'm quite proud of you. Incredible choice.”

“I'm gonna be the pink one!” Erin announces cheerfully. “Sage will be the yellow one. Which colour will you be?”

“Um, I got the green one,” Zayn says. “Not sure about which one Daddy got.”

“Red,” Sage answers to the unspoken question. “I think red and yellow look pretty together and if you mix them, it makes orange! We learned that with Miss Tanya this week.”

“Did you? You're such a smart girl,” Zayn grins at Sage and picks her up, both because he hasn't done that in weeks and missed his daughter more than a dying man in the desert would crave water, and because his knees were killing him. He hates being reminded how old he's actually getting.

After a moment, Zayn puts Sage back on the gravel path leading to the front door. Erin is chatting on about school too but Zayn only half listens to the report on numbers and learning new letters and shit because he can't focus on anything except for Harry's gaze. He's been watching them the whole time from the front door, kind of giving Zayn the impression as if Harry didn't trust him with his own damn kids that he's helped raise from the moment they were born up until the disruption in their lives some months ago. After all, Zayn didn't ask for the divorce so it's not like it's his fault.

Truth be told, their separation and the divorce proceedings they're currently battling their way through were no one's fault. An unfortunate slew of events led to all this. To the fighting, to the disenchantment, to the detachment. Nothing they could've done would've been able to prevent this eventual ending. It's bigger than them. It's bigger than the love they had for each other, might still have, or even the love for their kids.

“How about you go and get changed into your costumes, huh?” Zayn whispers to them conspicuously, like they had a secret mission or something. “I'll get my own from the car and then we'll meet in a few. How does that sound?”

“Great!” and “Good!” are shouted at the same time before the girls take off and stomp their way up the steps, brushing past Harry as they giggle cheerfully.

Zayn took a bit too long for simply grabbing his own Power Ranger costume from the back seat, still in its original packaging, just as it arrived at his doorstep a few days ago. Only the Amazon box is missing. He's dreading having to talk to Harry again. When the girls FaceTimed him last week, screeching one over the other that they're all going trick-or-treating together, Zayn was ecstatic to spend time with Erin and Sage again. Even in the back of his head, a place deep enough for foolish dreams and desires, Zayn thought that maybe , just maybe, he and Harry can talk again without the presence of their lawyers. Look at things from a different perspective. But now that he's faced with the startling reality of it, Zayn kind of wants to act like a proper bitch and completely ignore Harry.

That's not an option and he knows it. They both do because if they want to raise their daughters together despite not being together, they have to communicate and they have to at least pretend like things are just fine even if they're so fucking far from it the edge of the galaxy is probably closer.

Erin and Sage are just six and four, they hardly understand what's really going on. When one single event changed the course of their lives last November, Erin and Sage were still Zayn and Harry's biggest and only priority, really. They might be sad sometimes, ask “When is Dad coming back?” but ultimately, this is for their own good. Erin is catching onto more and more things every day but she still doesn't completely understand all of it. There are well-used tales for kids for when someone dies, there's a divorce or a breakup, anything that's trauma-inducing. She still nods when they feed her those lies but Zayn often wonders when will she ask the questions neither Zayn nor Harry has the answers to.

“Hi,” Harry says with an attempt at a smile when Zayn walks up the steps to the front door. “I'm glad you could make it. Erin and Sage almost talked my ears off about how excited they were to see you.”

It's been a few weeks since Zayn saw Harry this up close. Sure, there were the terribly depressing meetings with their lawyers, talking about their family in a way that was so barren of any emotion it nearly made Zayn sick, and in that kind of a situation, it's hard to focus on the man who you thought was the love of your life.

Harry looks tired. There's no other way to put it. He has dark circles underneath his eyes, his face an ashen shade of grey almost. The lines around his eyes and on his forehead are more pronounced than normally. His face is also thinner than ever. The sheer fascination with having a moment to look at Harry properly again after ages, the person he used to know as well as himself, takes Zayn to darker places too. He sees the two small scars on Harry's temple, one almost in his right eyebrow. Zayn's eyes travel down to Harry's collar bones, exposed by his low-neck t-shirt and sees the tiny, paler spots on his skin. If he thinks about it hard enough, he can still recall how those scars felt underneath his fingertips, so vividly that he might as well be doing it right now.

Zayn bites his bottom lip to keep himself from asking Harry questions that he has no right to ask now. How are you, honestly? Can you sleep at night? Do you take care of yourself or is that lost in the abyss because the girls are all you can think about to keep yourself sane?

“Of course,” Zayn affirms with the same clinical politeness. “I wish I could come over to see them more often. I miss them a lot.”

“I know,” Harry nods and looks down at his feet. “It'll be better once the joint custody is in place after- after everything's finalised.”

“Sure,” Zayn breathes out heavily. “So, can I come in?”

Harry's cheeks go a little pink when he realised they've been standing at the door's threshold for the past few minutes instead of going inside like normal people. He clumsily steps to the side on unsteady feet, letting Zayn in and closing the door behind them.

“Uh,” Harry hums nervously. “You can change in the guest bedroom. I'll put some things away in the kitchen, the girls made a mess at supper and I'll quickly change too and then we can go, is that fine?”

“Yeah, sure,” Zayn shrugs a little. “I'll make sure Erin and Sage are ready.”

“That'd be great,” Harry agrees, nodding stiffly.

They stand there for a few moments, both fumblingly switching between looking at each other and avoiding the other's gaze. One would never believe that not that long ago, they both lived in this house and did all of this together. As a unit, as a family. Making supper, getting the kids ready, taking care of the house in general. Now they talk like strangers. Their babysitter surely doesn't go through this awkward moment every time she comes over.

Eventually, the silence is shattered by both of them concurrently.

“I just-”

“I'm-”

“Sorry, go on first,” Zayn says after they stuttered over their words.

“Oh,” Harry's eyes widen a little. “It was nothing, really. Forget about it. I'll just- I'll be in the kitchen if the girls need me.”

Zayn's not a cruel person but if he was, he'd scream at Harry's back at he's their father too, just because he doesn't live here anymore doesn't mean that he doesn't know how to take care of their basic needs. Instead, he just lets all the anger and grief slide away and walks up the stairs.

He passes a room that he hasn't been in in months. The sight of the white door with some light-blue stickers in the shape of stars makes Zayn stop in his tracks and stare at the plank of painted wood as if it could suddenly become see-through or possibly give him answers to questions he's too afraid to ask, too ashamed to ask.

Zayn shakes his head as if he could get rid of the intrusive thoughts and enters the room right next to this one, which is thankfully just the nondescript guest bedroom. No traces of them here. Nothing that could mangle Zayn's heart again.

xxx

Zayn and Harry separated exactly two months and four days ago. Each one of those days has been torture, as were the months that preceded the separation. Screaming, crying, fighting over stupid shit that honestly didn't matter. Compared to the years they had spent together, this brief period of time was nothing.

They met in uni, as a lot of people do. Cliché, yes, but not a complete fairytale. Looking back at their beginnings, they were both spoiled arseholes who were used to getting their way no matter what and that was a problem the first year of their relationship, that's true. Thankfully, they matured, not exactly like fine wine but they no longer did stupid childish shit, started to favour better values in life and learned how to communicate. Apparently, those conversational skills completely left them by the time they reached their thirties and now they're getting a divorce but that's a tale for another time perhaps.

At twenty-three, they got married. Their friends had bets on how long this marriage will last and well, as of this day, it's eleven years but that's coming to an end and as far as Zayn remembers, the highest number on their tally was seven so at least that's something. No one thought they would stay together, not even their families who were proper pissed they got married in the middle of both of them getting their masters, but as the kids entered the equation, people weren't so doubtful anymore. They should've been.

The girls are more than ecstatic about their costumes. They jump around the foyer, trying to do cartwheels on the carpet. Apparently they're preparing to fight the bad guys. Zayn humours them, praising their ninja fighting skills and moderates the intense training by making sure they don't hit their heads on the stairs' railing and crack them open.

“I take that you like your outfits, huh?” comes from the stairs.

Zayn looks up and sees Harry walking down, in a red version of the same ridiculous outfit that Zayn's wearing too. When he became a parent Zayn learned there's not much one won't do for their child. Dressing up in silly costumes that generally make you look like a cunt is just a part of the job and no one can get out of that, no matter how hard they try.

Harry smiles brightly at the girls as they gush over their costumes, the only genuine smile that makes a regular appearance on his face these days. It's been like that for months now. A year ago, Zayn would've ogled Harry in the tight bodysuit, whispered something dirty to Harry so that the kids couldn't hear. Late at night when the kids were soundly asleep in their rooms they probably would've fucked, muttering something along the “ your arse looked too good in that costume” lines. Now they don't even fucking look at each other.

Halloween the year before was probably one of the best days ever for them as a family. Perhaps it seems like that just now, after their lives were cracked open and haphazardly put back together. If nothing changed, if things were as they should've been, Zayn wonders if that day would have any more significance than all the other celebrations, parties and family days. 

Still, the memories of them dressing up as various superheroes are brimming with fondness. Harry bitched a little that the kids picked it, complained that Zayn had a bad influence on them with all the comics because he doesn't want his children to grow up to be complete geeks. All that was only because Erin shut down Harry's idea about going as various Jim Carrey characters. In her defence, she was five at the time and hadn't seen anything besides the Grinch. But that was just harmless bickering, always only half-serious and said with a laugh. Not anything like what came after that.

The girls hop cheerfully ahead of them, swinging their arms with the pumpkin-shaped buckets. They sing some songs they both learned in kindergarten. Erin had the same teacher that Sage has now and teases her that she knows way more songs than her but Sage isn't one for fights. She just pouts for a moment before returning to her singing.

It goes without saying that Zayn and Harry walk next to each other in horrid, awkward silence. They pass a few other families from the neighbourhood and the looks of pity and unsure, tight-lipped smiles are almost too much for Zayn to handle. Harry's always been better at pretending, at shoving his feelings at the back of the figurative closet, behind all the skeletons, and persevering with robotic precision. Everyone around here knows what happened, that them doing this together is just a weak attempt at keeping the girls in the dark about the shitstorm.

“Don't let Jennet ask you a single question,” Harry says through his teeth as they approach the house of one of the more annoying neighbours. She hit on both of them, multiple times, in the daycare while each of them was dropping Erin off alone until she got the full picture and realised that they were married to each other. The wedding rings and routinely picking up the same child should've been telling enough but oh well.

And honestly, Zayn tried to get away from Jennet's door as soon as she was done interrogating the girls about menial shit but he wasn't quick enough.

“Are you back here then, Zayn?” Jennet asks with about the same level of politeness as the Godmother in Fleabag, down to the bone-chilling, unnatural smile.

Zayn chuckles awkwardly and hopes the girls were too distracted by their made-up game of ninjas or whatever, to hear him. “No, not really.”

“Oh, well that's a pity,” Jennet pouts with dramatised concern. “I know you've been through a lot this past year but don't let this marriage go down the gutter. If not for yourself then for the girls.”

“Thanks for the relationship advice, Jennet, but we'll be on our way,” Harry smiles, dripping venom with each word. As he speeds away from her house he mutters something like “ fucking hell, why the fuck does everyone need to stick their nose into my life”. Well, for once he's right.

“Daddy said a bad word!” Sage giggles and grins up at Harry. “You need to put a pound in the bad jar!”

Harry rolls his eyes as he grabs Sage's hand, the annoyed look slowly subduing from his face. “See, Sagey, when you grow up you will learn that in order to deal with some people in this world, bad words are sometimes necessary. But not yet for you, miss. I will be very, very old when you are allowed to use bad words. You shouldn't use them either way but when you're a grown-up like your Dad and I or your aunties and uncles, you will understand what I'm trying to tell you now.”

“Hm,” Sage ponders as she sucks on her lollipop. “I don't think I will remember it when I'm old.”

“Of course, you won't,” Harry laughs. “And who said you can have that lollipop, miss?”

“Erin!” Sage points her finger at her older sister enthusiastically.

“Dad said we can have some when you're not looking,” Erin says nonchalantly and hops down the sidewalk, sucking on a lollipop of her own.

“Oh, come on, Erin,” Zayn tries to act like he can't see Harry basically committing murder with his eyes. “What did we say about keeping a secret?”

“You didn't say it was one!” Erin shouts back at them. “Daddy doesn't let us have any fun.”

“Hey!” Harry protests as Sage breaks out of his hold and joins Erin, his voice dropping down in disappointment. “You're having loads of fun. Just because I care about your sugar intake- Don't come that close to the road!”

The obnoxious LED lights of the car blind them all for a split second, the car flying down the road at a speed far from what is suited, and legal, for a residential area like this. Zayn doesn't realise he was holding his breath until his lungs relax once he sees that both Erin and Sage are alright, standing just a few meters ahead of him and Harry. Safe and sound, they carry on as if nothing happened. 

“Who drives a car that bloody fast?” Harry frets as they continue walking. “It's a goddamn residential area, it's Halloween, there are children everywhere. God, do people just not fucking care about anyone but themselves? What if-”

“Hey,” Zayn stops Harry with a hand on his elbow. They haven't touched in weeks but Zayn resolutely doesn't think about it. It's not important right now.

Harry's breath is coming out in quick intervals, his eyes wide both with the momentary fear and the shock that Zayn's touching him right now. “I can't-”

“I know,” Zayn nods, keeping his eyes locked with Harry's. “It's fine, just breathe. No need to get upset over what-if's, yeah?”

Harry goes to nod before this… moment, whatever the fuck it is, is interrupted by Erin jumping up and yelling “BOO!”. While they both try to catch their breath, mumbling about how old they are and the risk of cardiac arrest, Erin just laughs it off and steers them along to the other houses. 

Sage starts to complain about being sleepy roughly a half-hour later. They're already on their way back, the girls' buckets brimming with candy and it's quite dark out. By the time they get back to the house and the girls are put in bed, it will definitely be at least past Sage's bedtime. Erin wasn't completely wrong because Zayn knows for a fact that Harry's been a little overprotective in the past couple of months so letting Sage miss her bedtime is somewhat of a surprise. Zayn doesn't blame him for it, he understands and the therapist they attempted to visit regularly did too. It's a logical reaction considering all that's going on.

“We'll be home soon, sweetie,” Harry tells her. “But there's no kindergarten tomorrow, you can sleep in for however long you want.”

“Okay,” Sage responds is a small voice. “Dad, can you give me a piggyback ride? But up?”

“Yeah, sure,” Zayn smiles at her. She rewards him with a beaming smile and hops on along to him.

“Wait, Zayn, your shoulder,” Harry says just as Zayn gets Sage up on his shoulders, who's more than happy to now be “even taller than Daddy”.

“It's fine, don't worry about it,” Zayn retorts dumbly, stunned that Harry would care about his well-being in any way, shape or form.

“Are you sure?” Harry doesn't drop the topic. “Sage isn't a toddler anymore, I don't want you to hurt yourself.”

Zayn sighs. “Harry, it's fine. Honestly. Have you grown incapable of trusting any word that leaves my mouth?”

“No, I-” Harry averts his gaze, his cheeks going a bit red.

“I'm sorry,” Zayn says quickly. This smells too much like the beginning of a fight and ever since the idea of divorce was wedged in between their relationship, shattering it like brittle glass, there were only two rules. Number one, don't let the girls feel like their family is falling apart. And number two, never start a fight in front of the girls.

They walk the rest of the way home in relative silence because even the sugar didn't keep Erin and Sage from getting sleepy meaning they're not very chatty anymore. Zayn and Harry don't have much to talk about so they don't. “ Are you excited for the meeting with our lawyers next week?” isn't the best starter for a conversation when their daughters are present. Zayn’s shoulder starts to hurt when they’re half a street away from their house. He ignores it. 

Once they get back, the girls muster up a bit more energy to try and convince their dads into letting them eat some more candy before bed. The idea is shut down pretty quickly. Zayn changes from that god-awful outfit back into his jeans and shirt while Harry gets the girls to store their Halloween haul away.

“Alright, loves, say goodbye to Dad and it's bedtime for you both,” Harry announces once Zayn is back downstairs and the girls' candy is put away in a special basket in the pantry.

That sets off a fucking hurricane. Both Erin and Sage start wailing as they flock to Zayn and wrap their little arms around him, as if that could magically repair everything and keep him home forever, like it was supposed to be. Zayn tries to console them while simultaneously keep himself from joining their tear-fest but it's to no avail. He promises that he'll come back soon and then soon they'll be together for two whole weeks in the city before they have to return to Daddy.

As the girls continue to cry and beg him to stay, Zayn mulls over the horrible reality that soon he'll have to bring the girls into his flat in the city, the cold place that's devoid of any feeling of a home. He essentially ran there because the middle of London isn't usually a place for families and staying someplace like Richmond, Zayn doesn't think he could bear the sight of others' happiness while his own was crumbling away.

Harry watches all this go down with a mostly blank face but Zayn knows him, knows every single inch of his body and soul, and therefore he can see that Harry's heart is just as heavy as Zayn's is. But one temper tantrum and loads of crying from their daughters can't change the hard, cold reality that they so desperately tried to run from. They still haven't quite figured out how to do it.

“Dad, I don't want you to be gone forever,” Erin sobs, snot running down to her upper lip.

“Baby, I'll never be gone forever,” Zayn whispers after he hugged her close to his chest. “I'll always, always be here for you and Sage, I promise. I'll be back soon.”

“No,” Erin pulls away, shaking her head. “You and Daddy promised Jack would be back but he never came back and then he went to heaven. I don't want you to be gone like Jack. I miss him but I would miss you more, Dad.”

When Erin finishes talking, the carefully crafted world of pretend where everything is fine shatters into dust. Zayn and Harry's eyes meet across the room, both pairs filled with utter dread and shock. There are no words to be said. Not to each other, not to Erin or Sage. Just emptiness.

Harry's eyes flood with tears in a matter of seconds and he covers his mouth in an attempt to drown out his sobs. He runs up the stairs and doesn't come back.

Zayn quickly wipes his own tears and starts talking to the girls in a slow, hushed voice. It's a practised act. Sage is the first to stop crying, probably thanks to her exhaustion. Her bedtime passed a long time ago. Erin understands more of the situation and day by day, it's harder to get her to fall for the lies her parents try to use to protect her.

Eventually, they both stop crying and agree to go to bed. Zayn promises to stay despite not knowing whether he and Harry will be able to look into each other's eyes ever again.

xxx

Jack was born on a sunny Thursday some three years back. It's a terrible cliché to say it but the weather rightly mirrored their emotions. The elation of finally holding their baby boy carried a warmth akin to the feeling of sun kissing your skin on a pleasantly hot day. It was a beautiful day and it's up there with some of the best moments of their lives, along with the arrival of Erin and Sage.

Ever since they first began seriously talking about starting a family, three was the magic number anytime kids were mentioned. They both knew that they wanted quite a big family but not terribly large so three seemed like the golden, middle road. With Jack, the plans were fulfilled. He was the last piece of the puzzle they needed. As he grew older, Zayn and Harry's happiness and ease did too at a directly proportional level. There are many couples struggling with infertility or adoption so they realised their privilege to have three healthy, beautiful children. At the same time, they allowed themselves to sit back and not worry about having to go through the whole process of having a newborn again.

It hurts to try and remember what Jack was like. He was still with them not that long ago but almost a year in toddler time is an eternity. Jack would've been able to more or less talk now, run almost as fast as Sage can. He would've been growing into a real boy, into a future adult person, no longer a baby. Zayn thinks about Jack every single day and on the worse days, these exact images swarm his mind. The pain only seeps deeper into his bones, into the very marrow and buries itself in the nethermost parts of Zayn's heart. Sometimes when he FaceTimes or calls the girls, he expects to hear Jack's babbling in the background or to see him pop in and drool onto the phone camera. The moment never comes. He recognises that the disappointment that sets in afterwards is only a folly, a complete deviation from reality but it stings the same on the raw wounds of loss.

A split second took Jack away from them in the most abhorrent way and left everything crumbling away with time. Their marriage, their family . They'll never truly recover from losing Jack. God knows they tried to move on. Even if Jack was gone, they have two wonderful kids who need them, now more than ever. So after the turbulent first two months where even waking up in the morning felt like betrayal, they tried therapy and did they battle with it. The therapy didn't really help, even if they were going there, albeit very irregularly, up until the divorce was set in motion.

The day they lost Jack they lost so much more than just him.

Zayn blocks off any thoughts about Jack, any intrusive memories because there are two brilliant girls standing right in front of him who need him. Need him to be strong for them and to just be their father . They already lost their brother and if Erin's words are anything to go by, they feel like they're losing one of their parents too.

“C'mon, let's get ready for bed, yeah?” Zayn fails miserably at sounding cheerful. “The sooner you fall asleep the sooner you'll have pancakes in the morning.”

The mention of pancakes for breakfast usually comes with a lot of cheering from the girls but now they stare blankly at Zayn with vexing adult clarity. Zayn's heart drops to the very last level of hell because he knows that he and Harry are responsible for Erin and Sage's sadness. No point going around it when it's the truth. A divorce breaking an already broken family.

“Please, sweethearts, just come upstairs,” Zayn pleads. “It's terribly late, you need rest.”

“Will you be here in the morning?” Sage asks, taking a pause from sucking her thumb. She only does it these days when she's upset or completely knackered.

“I will,” Zayn affirms. He doesn't care about what Harry will think, he won't leave the two most important people in his life in this situation.

“Okay,” Sage mumbles with the thumb still in her mouth and sets off upstairs. After a long, contemplating look with a hint of what almost looks like a betrayal, Erin follows her younger sister upstairs. Zayn takes a huge breath of relief and tails right behind them.

He gets the girls to brush their teeth relatively easily, which isn't too unpredictable since they know their routines and they don't tend to misbehave when basic tasks are concerned. In moments like these, Zayn silently congratulates himself for not fucking up his part of parenting. At least in this aspect, since Erin and Sage are both probably going to need therapy in twenty years when they won't be able to hold down a relationship because of their fucked up dads.

Zayn then takes a face towel, drenches it with cold water and gently cleans up the girls' faces, to get rid of both the swelling from crying and the snot. Sage even laughs when he tries to distract them with shitty jokes.

Erin asks to change into her pyjamas on her own and the door on her room stays shut. Meanwhile Sage is fussy because she's now too tired and is determined to sleep only in her sunflower nightgown, which is stored away since it's for summer so that's a whole ordeal. But once Sage agrees, with quite a lot of bribing of candy for tomorrow, to wear her pyjamas, she's soundly asleep within minutes of getting tucked into bed. She whispers “I love you, Dad”, grabs her bunny, turns her back to Zayn and the door, and is out like a light.

Zayn kisses Sage's shoulder before he leaves and braves himself to go to Erin's room. She's smart, sometimes too smart for her age and he knows she will have questions. If not, then she will be stubbornly cold and quiet, exactly like Harry when he's mad but doesn't want to fight but wouldn't be completely opposed to it if a fight spontaneously arose.

When Zayn cracks the door open as quietly as he can, thinking that Erin is sleeping too, he's surprised to find her sitting on her bed in her pyjama flipping through some book. Erin looks up when Zayn opens the door further but she doesn't react and goes back to the large but thin book in her lap. Cautiously, Zayn comes closer and eventually sits down on the side of the bed next to Erin. Then he sees that she's not reading a book at all.

It's a scrapbook. The one they started making a few weeks after Erin was born. At its core, it's the thing you pull out when your kid brings a girlfriend or a boyfriend home for the first time and you just have to embarrass them by showing off their naked baby pictures and embarrassing documentation of their teen phases.

Everything's there. First photos of all the kids on the day they were born, birthday celebrations, vacations, Christmases, Easters, Halloweens, first days of school and kindergarten. All smiles and happiness.

Erin keeps flipping the pages, gradually getting through Sage's second birthday and their holiday in Greece before she reaches a new page with Jack's name written on the top in measured, decorative cursive. And there are two photos from that bright, sunny day when Jack was born. The first one is just him, sleeping contently in a nappy. But the second one has all five of them in it. Jack in Harry's arms, Sage grinning at the camera from Zayn's lap, Erin poking her tongue out from behind them.

Seeing the rest of the pages is torture, pure torture. Overthinking all the events captured forever in these images would warrant a similar reaction to Harry's from earlier and Erin doesn't need to see that again so Zayn just bites the inside of his cheek as he looks at the last two pictures. Jack's second birthday and Halloween. Then the entries stop.

“Where did you find this?” Zayn asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Daddy was looking at it in the library,” Erin replies. She closes the book and reaches behind Zayn to put it on her bedside table. “I think it was two weeks ago. Or maybe last week. I don't know.”

“Alright,” Zayn nods. “You know it's okay to be sad that Jack isn't here anymore. I'm sad. Daddy is too. We all miss him.”

“I know,” Erin says casually. “But I don't want you to leave too.”

She looks up at Zayn and it's nearly enough to break him.

“Erin, baby,” Zayn sighs. “All of this is very, very complicated and I don't expect you to understand. But please know that I love you, and Sage, more than anything in the world and soon you'll be spending as much time with me as you do with Daddy. I promise you this.”

“I want you here all the time,” Erin protests, her bottom lip jutted out in a pout. “Like before when you would drive us to school every day and play with us. You're better at explaining math than Daddy.”

Zayn chuckles wetly. “Babe, I don't think we can do that. I want to, trust me, I would do anything to come back. But I can't.”

“Why?” Erin frowns. “You're here right now so just… stay.”

“I wish it was that simple, sweetheart,” Zayn sighs and wraps an arm around Erin's shoulders. “After Jack… went to heaven, everything changed. And sometimes, when things change, it hurts for a bit. I know that it will be hard at first, living with both your Daddy and me separately but you'll get used to it. We'll be fine, yeah?”

“Is Daddy mad at you?” Erin asks with an uncertain lilt to her voice.

Zayn sighs, pondering the question. Is Harry mad at him? Probably. Is it because of anything specific? Most likely not. Their divorce is the pure definition of collateral damage.

“Maybe,” Zayn settles on saying. “You shouldn't worry about us, darling. We'll be fine. Grown-ups sometimes don't get along and it's normal. You'll see one day.”

“So you won't come back for always even if I say pretty please?” Erin asks with naive hopefulness.

Zayn can't help but laugh. “No, I'm afraid not.”

“Even if me and Sage do all our homework forever ?” Erin stretches her arms to visualise how big forever really is.

“Well, you'll have to do your homework regardless of whether I stay or not,” Zayn says, the sadness slowly creeping in again.

Erin frowns at him. “You're using weird words, Dad.”

“Sorry, sweetie.”

“What if I ask Daddy to ask you?” Erin's face lights up at the idea. “I don't think he's mad at you. When Daddy's mad he's very loud, like when Miss Gwen's dog plays in the flowers outside, and he wasn't loud today. He's never upset with me though so I don't really know but I think it's okay. I can ask him tomorrow.”

“Darling,” Zayn says with a weary sigh, brushing a strand of Erin's hair out of her face. “If you really, really want to, go ahead. But I think Daddy will tell you almost the same thing as I did. Thank you very much for trying but this is business for grownups so don't worry your smart, little head over it, alright? Everything will be fine.”

“So I can ask him?” Erin persists.

“I can't tell you no,” Zayn shrugs. “It's not a rude question and you know the rule: you can ask anything as long as it's nice.”

“Okay, I'll ask Daddy in the morning,” Erin grins and hugs Zayn around his torso. “Can you read me a story?”

“Of course.”

Despite the circumstances that lead to Zayn staying at the house he used to call home not that long ago being horrendous, he enjoys the nighttime routine with the girls. Sage basically passed out as soon as her head hit the pillow but he read Erin the latest Juno Valentine book until her eyes were droopy. He then tucked her in, kissed her forehead and left, making sure her nightlight was plugged in.

When he quietly leaves Erin's room, Zayn wonders where Harry went. His best guess is the master bedroom but it's not like Zayn will just barge in there. When Harry shuts himself in a bedroom, usually the best thing to do is leave him alone. There were times when Harry wanted, needed touch to ground him, to give him that reassurance that everything will be fine. But that is a thing of the past now.

Zayn moves through the hallway as quietly as he can, trying to get to the guest bedroom. He promised Erin and Sage he will be here in the morning and he's going to keep that promise. But before he can hide out in the guest room, he has to pass Jack's room.

The blue stars on the white door aren't the first thing he notices this time.

Strangely enough, the door is nearly wide open. Zayn hesitates to look inside but he finds the courage somehow. It isn't stemming from curiosity, not really. Perhaps it's a newfound rationality and the desire to ease that ache that's been a constant in his heart since that fateful day last November.

He doesn't know what he was expecting to see inside Jack's room but Zayn sees Harry standing in the middle of it, his back to the door. His arms are crossed, one hand reaching his face where he's probably pulling at his bottom lip until it's raw and puffy. He's changed out of the red bodysuit into some grey sweatpants and a plain, white tee. Curiously, the curve of his back reminds Zayn of all the times he entered his room to find Harry standing over Jack's crib, talking at him or singing him to sleep. At that time Harry would sense Zayn watching them after a moment and he'd smile at Zayn over his shoulder. Here and now, Harry stands there like a statue.

“Harry?” Zayn dares to ask after minutes of standing in the doorway, watching Harry silently fidget here and there.

Harry doesn't turn to face Zayn when he speaks. “I haven't stepped a foot in here since the week after Jack died.” When Zayn's quiet, Harry continues. “I remember telling my mum before she picked the girls up and took them home not to touch anything here. As if I could will things to be alright if everything stayed the same. When I told her, at that moment, I still believed everything would be fine. It was foolish to think it would.”

Indeed, when Zayn gives the room a proper once-over, it's a nicer, cleaner version of Miss Havisham's dining room from Great Expectation. Instead of a wedding cake and food, there are some toys strewed around, the bedding crinkled from Jack sleeping in the crib, a pile of Jack's washed, unfolded clothes waiting to be put away. Time stopped here almost a year ago and it hasn't moved. It's an arduous time capsule, evocative of a time now gone. When Zayn looks around the room, he can clearly see that last day with Jack. Some memories that were getting rough around the edges, bits and pieces missing, are whole again. The pacifier Jack threw on the ground just before they left but didn't have time to pick it up since they were already running late. His favourite teddy bear knocked over in the crib. A book for practising his words laying open on the armchair.

“Hope is never a foolish thing,” Zayn says in a quiet voice.

Harry scoffs. “It is. I was hoping that we could endure this, that we could move on but it was impossible.”

“Was it?” Zayn questions Harry daringly. Maybe when there's not a person paid to dig through their issues in the room and there's nothing else to lose because they've already lost almost everything, maybe they can finally talk.

Harry turns around, finally facing Zayn again. His eyes are red from crying but he doesn't look angry, doesn't seem ready for a fight. Perhaps it's all truly over.

“Yes,” Harry retorts. “I couldn't even look at you the first couple of weeks.”

Zayn feels a bitter pang in his chest. “What-”

“Every single time I looked at you I saw your tears when we got the news,” Harry continues talking. “I could hear Jack wailing that one last time. And I knew-” He takes a deep breath, eyes glossy with tears threatening to break free. “I knew I couldn't keep on accepting your love, your affection when I brought upon Jack's death. I killed our son and I was supposed to just carry on living happily? To have two other wonderful children, who are absolutely brilliant, and a husband who loved me to death? How in the fuck did I deserve that when my baby was rotting in the ground? It doesn't make any fucking sense.”

“Harry, please don't say that,” Zayn pleads. “It wasn't your fault, babe.”

But Harry just chuckles bitterly, sniffing as tears start to stream down his face. “I was driving the car that day, Zayn. You were sitting next to me so you know I was behind the wheel. It's my fault we lost our son.”

xxx

It's cliché to say that your life can change with a split second but it's the truth. Most life-altering moments aren't drawn out over the course of years or months or weeks or even days. One single event stands behind all of them. That spark of determination. A chance meeting. A simple look to the wrong side. All of them begin with an inconspicuous detonator.

That fateful day last November started like any other. It was a rather gloomy Friday, the morning misty and chilly. They set off the day with their usual routine. All of them were up by 7 AM and started getting ready. The girls were downstairs dressed with their backpacks around 7:30. Zayn made breakfast while Harry packed lunches for the girls and fed Jack. On his way to work, Zayn dropped Erin off at school and Sage at kindergarten. Harry usually worked from home since he had his studio, where he restores antique furniture, in their backyard, unless there was an auction or he had a consultation with a client, so he was always home with the kids until it was time for them to start kindergarten. Zayn isn't sure what he and Jack did that day because Harry never really spoke about it. Only later that day he mentioned going through some new words with Jack but that's all that had been said before their lives changed forever.

They had a family day planned. Zayn left the office early and went straight home. One of Harry's friends published a children's book and they were heading to the launch party which was basically one big playdate for the kids, with a bit of champagne for the parents. As usual, they were running late. Neither Zayn nor Harry were exactly punctual before they had kids but as the number of children under five in their household kept increasing, everyone just accepted they will never be anywhere on time again.

Even if they were a bit behind on the schedule, there was no erratic driving as they headed to pick the girls up. The roads weren't wet and slippery, the morning fog had subdued, Harry didn't run a single stop sign or a red light. But there was a young guy driving a car while completely obliterated. Unfortunately, their paths crossed.

  The crash claimed three lives in total. The drunk driver and an innocent pedestrian were the two more casualties besides Jack. It was a moderately busy intersection and some of the police officers on the scene chatted about how it's a miracle “only” three people were seriously injured. The drunk driver was instantly killed but Jack and the pedestrian had been taken to the nearest hospital before they lost their fights a few days after that.

Zayn remembers it too clearly. He's tried so many times to forget but he can't. One moment, he and Harry were talking about signing Sage up for dance lessons while Jack was babbling to himself in the backseat as he played with his toys. The next thing they knew the car wasn't running anymore, it was so fucking loud everywhere and the air was drenched with this disgusting smell of smoke.

When he first opened his eyes, Zayn thought it was a nightmare. As he looked around a bit and felt blinding pain in his left shoulder when he tried to move, he knew it was real. Jack was wailing in the backseat but when Zayn looked into the rear-view, nothing seemed wrong with him, except for that fact that he must've been terrified. He was in a sturdy baby car seat, who would think that he was hurt so badly? The guilt haunts Zayn to this day but he was more worried about Harry in the immediate aftermath, who was passed out and had blood all over his face, streaming down to his neck. He tried to shake Harry awake, which he managed to do within a few minutes and only then did they try to get Jack.

Their car was squeezed between the drunk driver's car and another different one so they couldn't get outside. No matter what they tried, they just couldn't get to him. The seatbelts were stuck, they couldn't wiggle out of them so the best and only thing they were able to do was to talk to Jack and try to console him.

Looking back at those moments feels like slashing your skin over and over and over again. They had no idea, did they? Jack looked alright. There wasn't any blood, he was moving his arms and legs, he was more than conscious. Only once they were in the hospital did they find out what was truly going on.

Four excruciating, forlorn days - that's how long they spent hoping that Jack would be fine, that he'd be able to come home with them. But it was all too much for his body to handle. Internal bleeding, concussion, fractures, other things that were invisible to the naked eye. The darkness settled in that day and hasn't left since.

“Harry,” Zayn sighs, watching helplessly as Harry starts sobbing again. “Please, love, it wasn't your fault. In the official investigation, everywhere it says that the drunk guy caused the crash. Not you. No one blames you for it. I don't blame you. Stop blaming yourself, please.”

“It's easy for you to say,” Harry sniffs. “You weren't behind the wheel, you didn't bring us to that specific point in time that led to Jack's death.”

“I could've been,” Zayn says. “It doesn't matter who was driving, we couldn't have prevented it. Sure, things would've been different if we had left the house two minutes earlier or later but we can't change it now. No one fucking can. We can only learn to live with it.”

“How?” Harry shouts, wiping his tears furiously. “How am I supposed to live with the fact that my child is dead, that I've ruined my marriage and that I'm able to breathe, walk, eat, live when I should've fucking died that day too!”

Zayn's taken aback for a moment. He scoffs, shaking his head. “How fucking selfish are you, Harry? Yeah, you could've died that day, I could've too but we didn't. Do you not think about Erin? And Sage? Your two other kids who need you, who love you and would've been completely devastated if they lost you too? Now it's bad enough that they will grow up in a broken family because you've pushed me away. And fine, I'll leave you, for good, I don't fucking care if you hate me. And you know what? This might be news to you but I miss Jack too. Every single fucking day. I grieve him. I feel guilty for being alive while he can't be. But every single day I try to do better, to be better, not for myself but for Erin and Sage. When we were still together I did it for you too because I love you too fucking much for my own good but you didn't care. You filed for divorce because I guess it's easier for you to completely disregard the fifteen years we spent together than to deal with what happened.”

“ I'm selfish?” Harry fights back. “You're talking about our fucking marriage instead of the child we lost! How is that more important? Is your cock more important than Jack? Are you mad at me because we stopped sleeping together because I felt too guilty to do it? I can't fucking believe you.”

“You completely missed my point, Harry,” Zayn shakes his head. “Your life is not over. You can't wallow in guilt and remorse, and grieve all your life. You also don't have to deal with all this fucking pain alone. I wanted- I wanted to go through this together. To work our way through the grief together . He was my son too, Harry. I love him just as much as you do. I tried so hard to stifle my own grief a little bit and be there for you, for the girls. But you shut me out and never let me in again.”

Harry looks to the side, trying not to start crying again. The tears are stronger than him because Zayn notices thin streams of them glistening on Harry's cheeks in the slight darkness.

“I wanted to die,” Harry divulges after some silence. “I just didn't want to keep on living my life when I knew Jack couldn't keep on living his.”

Zayn doesn't say anything in fears of interrupting Harry and never getting to hear what he wants to say again. This might be the last chance.

“Logically, my rationality is telling me that it wasn't my fault,” Harry continues, now facing Zayn again but their eyes never quite meet. “I know that I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't run a stop sign or a red light. I wasn't speeding. I had my eyes on the road the whole time, I wasn't distracted. So I think… what I've kind of realised in the past few weeks is that my guilt doesn't stem from the accident itself but in the guilt of just surviving it. I mean, a fucking concussion and a few cuts, that's all I got from it. Even you had to get surgery on your shoulder. But Jack, our baby that we were supposed to keep safe, he was hurt so badly that he couldn't win the fight. No matter what the doctors did he just kept crashing.

“And I've never told you this but… the day before he passed, I went to see him. They allowed it just that one time because he was up and it seemed like he was doing better. You were still out after the surgery so I had to go alone. And I just- I saw him hooked to all these machines that I have no idea what they do and he just looked so small, like he was a baby again. He wasn't crying, he wasn't fussing around. He just had a pacifier in his mouth and he stared at me with the same intensity as when he saw me for the very first time. I thought I'd start bawling the moment I laid my eyes on him but I couldn't let myself. I was scared it'd upset him. It was all so brief but I just kept telling him how brave he is, that he's gonna be okay, that we love him and that he's gonna be home soon. Not once did he take his eyes off mine. He grabbed my fingers halfway through. Then they said I had to leave so I kissed his forehead and left.”

Zayn doesn't realise that he started crying at some point during the story until he feels tears on his neck. “Why haven't you told me about this before?”

Harry shakes his head softly. “I don't know. It hurt too much to remember it.”

Nodding, Zayn takes a few steps so he's properly in the room, not only leaning against the doorframe. It's hard standing on the soft carpet again after such a long time. The air is a bit stale but it still sort of smells like Jack.

“You know,” Zayn starts, taking a deep breath before he carries on. “A few days after the funeral, I was with the girls in Erin's room. They roped me into some game, I don't even remember what it was. But as they laughed and teased each other, I felt really fucking grateful to be alive which brought unimaginable guilt to me. But it's true. I'm glad I'm here because I can see Sage and Erin grow up, I can continue being their Dad and they don't have to deal with losing me. So you shouldn't feel guilty about being alive, Harry. I did, for a while, still have some moments when it hits me but ultimately, I'd rather live with this darkness in my heart that will always be there for Jack than to have my two other children grow up without me. I never wanted for us to separate, Erin's reaction from earlier today is a perfect example of why but kids can't sustain a relationship, can they? I'd rather have them for two weeks a month than not at all and have you happier as well.”

Harry lets out a breathy chuckle. “You think I'm happier without you?”

“You filed for divorce, how else am I supposed to understand this?” Zayn questions.

Harry sighs and takes a few steps in mostly the same spot. “I don't even fucking know. I guess… I realised that I could never be a good husband to you again and that it wasn't fair to try and keep you in this relationship just for the kids. I started picking stupid fights with you and I don't even know why. I guess I kind of let the grief consume me and I couldn't see past it. I couldn't see that by making you leave, the girls would partly lose a parent. That I'd lose the love of my life. My mind just omitted those connections and all it was focused on was just Jack, Jack, Jack, oh you deserve to die, Jack, don't forget your husband hates you now.”

“What?” Zayn breathes out. “Why would I ever hate you?”

“I don't know, Zayn!” Harry exclaims exasperatedly. “I hated myself for basically killing our child. Don't start with the ' it wasn't your fault' crap again, I recognise the basic facts, it doesn't ease the guilt. So if I hate myself that much, how could you not hate me? How could you sleep in the same bed with me and be so loving to me when I didn't deserve any of it? I felt like it was all a farce.”

“I could never hate you, Harry,” Zayn says sincerely. “Not for this, especially since I knew how much you were hurting. I wanted to fight for you but I didn't want to make this whole situation any messier than it already is.”

Harry sighs, covering his face with his hands. “I need to see a therapist. Just on my own.”

“You do,” Zayn agrees. “I've been seeing one ever since I moved out of the house and it's helped me see things more rationally, more clearly. Every single memory of Jack still tremendously hurts but now I'm beginning to be able to look at some of the happier ones with joy rather than anguish. It has helped me cope with everything much better, understand my feelings and whatnot.”

Harry nods, pulling at his bottom lip again. “I want to be better. I just want to do better for the girls. For you. I don't wanna be a wreck. I want to be able to look at pictures of Jack without having a fucking panic attack. I just want some things to be normal.”

“Me too,” Zayn says with a slight encouraging smile. “C'mon, it's late. You shouldn't stand around here all night.”

“I know,” Harry affirms, looking around the room. “I'll tidy this up soon. I don't think I'm ready to get rid of everything but I have to start somewhere. It feels like a mausoleum.”

Zayn waits for Harry at the threshold and they leave at least, shutting the door behind them. It's like they've never even been there.

They set off down the hallway, walking side by side mumly. As they reach the master bedroom, Zayn feels a light grasp on his right wrist.

He turns around, questioning Harry with his eyes. Harry's face is open, uncertain. He's lightly biting his bottom lip before letting it go and taking a deep breath.

“Stay,” is all Harry says.

An unspoken conversation takes place between them. Zayn keeps his eyes locked with Harry's as he deliberately slides their hands together. Their fingers interweave, the meeting of skin making their pulse pick up.

“Please stay,” Harry lets out breathlessly.

Zayn nods, almost invisibly, as they inch closer and closer together. The thrill of being so near each other after long, long weeks is like electricity. In that moment they could be young and foolishly in love again, caring about fuck all but one another.

“Just stay with me,” Harry whispers, their faces so close they can feel the heat radiating off of the other's skin. “Please don't let me push you away again.”

“I won't,” Zayn says. “I promise.”

Their lips meet for perhaps the millionth time. It's familiar yet it could be their first kiss all over again. Months have passed since they last kissed each other and haven't felt crushing, bone-breaking guilt afterwards. Time has passed and some of their wounds have started to heal. Eventually, they will heal completely. The scars will always be there, though. They don't want to forget nor would they be able to do so.

But they have to let the wounds heal because if they don't, the blood will keep spilling over and over and over again until they've been sucked dry, spent, useless, shells of their former selves. They tried to run from reality which kept opening their wounds, not letting them heal. With time, they have started to embrace it, not run from it. Only then can they reverentially move on.

xxx

The days in the immediate aftermath of Jack's funeral never felt quite real. Stuck somewhere between a strange dream and a horrible nightmare, Zayn thought it would all end soon. That one night he'd be woken up by Jack's crying, the nightmare left behind. Or that the next morning would be just like any other one from before, with all three kids present and grumpy because they didn't want to get up early. None of it happened.

As time went on, the was a noticeable rift forming between Zayn and Harry. They picked up on it, noted it and did nothing to repair it. How were they supposed to think about their relationship when their son was dead? How does one bring up a conversation about that when they're all drenched with grief?

It all simply started with not having sex because honestly, who thinks about that when they're grieving their child? Some people might have a fucked up way of coping with grief and guilt through sex but neither Zayn nor Harry were one of them. But the physical detachment developed and soon enough, they were essentially two strangers sleeping in the same bed.

They should've coped with Jack's death together . He was their son. They loved him equally, raised him since the day he was born, watched him grow up. But Harry shut down and didn't let anyone in. He let the guilt consume him, insert self-destructive tendencies into his brain. He didn't need to say it out loud, Zayn could see it clear as day but he wasn't without fault. 

Zayn gave in too easy. He should've ripped the divorce papers and thrown them into Harry's face, told him to get the fuck together and to stop trying to ruin their family. But he was too scared to do it. The last thing Zayn wanted to do was to add on to Harry's grief and the feeling of overpowering guilt. So he agreed to it, packed up some of his things and moved out.

Somewhere deep down, Zayn didn't think Harry would end up actually going through with the divorce but with each meeting with their lawyers, the reality grew more and more solid. Custody of Erin and Sage was agreed upon, the assets they've acquired during their marriage were in the process of being divided 50/50. It was all too real.

After tonight, after they finally said things that have been weighing down on their chests for almost a year, maybe they have a chance to take it all back and start trying again. It's all they can do - try. Healing doesn't come with the snap of one's fingers. It requires patience, time and determination. Perhaps they're strong enough to do it now.

They stumble into the master bedroom while kissing, the longing of months upon months finally manifesting in the way they can't seem to let go off each other. Despite the passion overwhelming their senses, they're gentle. No bruises born out of desire will appear on hips in the morning. There's no biting and dirty-talking.

The guilt still tries to creep up on them but they can't let. Not this time.

When the door is shut and locked, the clothes start to come off. Zayn's surprised when Harry makes the first move and starts unbuttoning Zayn's shirt.

“Are you sure, Haz?” Zayn asks cautiously.

“I am,” Harry nods and leaves a kiss on Zayn's neck. “I've missed you a lot. Even before you moved out and we were sleeping in the same bed I felt like I couldn't reach out and touch you and I just missed you so fucking much.”

“I did too,” Zayn's voice is barely above a whisper.

It doesn't take much from that point to get them both naked. Then they finally move to their king-sized bed. Harry lies down on the bed first and pulls Zayn between his legs, locking him in and kissing him immediately. Fuck, Zayn missed this so much. Not even the satisfaction of getting off, but the intimacy of the whole act. When you spend roughly fifteen years sleeping with one and the same person, who you happen to love very much, sex gains a new meaning. It doesn't have to be purely about chasing the high of an orgasm. It can be but in moments like this, the act of it has a much deeper meaning. The emotional value of connecting only with your bodies cannot be described. Words left unsaid, feelings too vulnerable for a language, all that can rise to the surface and be communicated through a kiss, a touch, a gasp.

Tonight, they're definitely not in it to simply get off and move on. Tonight, they're trying to save their marriage, to make sure all those years together don't go to waste. More is at stake than just their relationship. Their marriage is directly tied to their family and that's what they're trying to salvage too.

For many months, they abandoned the love they have for each other. They must try to find it again.

“Harry, wait,” Zayn says, his breath quick from what seemed like an eternity of kissing. “Please promise me you will be here in the morning?”

Harry shakes his head with a slight smile. “Where else would I be?”

“I don't know,” Zayn sighs. “In the kitchen acting like we're strangers again. Like tonight never happened. If you're not completely sure you can do this, then we don't have to. I'd rather we take everything slow that hurl towards change headfirst and fuck it up again.”

“Baby,” Harry pecks Zayn's lips before continuing. “I'm sure. I love you so fucking much. I never stopped. I will never stop.”

Zayn gives a few short nods before kissing Harry again. “I love you too. Please don't doubt it again. Don't let guilt dictate your feelings, darling. I'm always here for you, yeah? You deserve to be happy again, when you decide to accept it. It's okay.”

“Since when are you so eloquent?” Harry chuckles softly.

“Not my own thoughts, my therapist told me something along those lines,” Zayn lets out a low laugh. “But I mean it. I love you, Harry and I don't want to go through a separation again. As long as we're still in love, we don't deserve that pain. The girls don't deserve it. We already carry enough agony around as it is.”

Harry takes a sharp breath. “I'll try. That's all I can promise you right now. I'll try to do better.”

Zayn kisses Harry softly. “That's all you need to do, babe. Try. It's what we're all doing. No one has all the shit figured out. It's impossible.”

“Good,” Harry nods. “Can we go back to where we left off? It's weird to have such an emotionally-driven conversation with our bollocks out.”

Zayn laughs. “Your humor's coming back, that's not a bad sign.”

“The girls help a lot,” Harry smiles knowingly. “They're little comedians.”

As the words taper off, they switch to a language of their bodies they know well. They share a life and sometimes, when it's just the two of them, their naked bodies joined, it seems like they share a soul too. For months, they were missing that vulnerable moment of closeness, inseparableness, what it gave to them.

Not much has changed yet everything has. Muscle memory allows them to proceed as if there wasn't almost a year-long gap between now and the time they were last together like this. Kisses come as easy as breathing and they read each other like a good, weathered paperback you nearly know by heart. Their bodies are the same but not quite. New scars are present, physical reminders on their very skin of how their lives have changed.

None of if matters when their bodies are finally joined, two becoming one for a few moments of pleasure, of voiceless conversation. They kiss, they touch, they whisper hushed I-love-you-s . It's almost the same as before.

But it isn't. There's heaviness weighing down their chests no matter how hard they try to pretend like it isn't. It has kept them from indulging in this, from finding comfort in the familiar curves of one another's bodies when they needed it the most. The fierceness of it was practically holding their wrists like shackles and they were unable to move. They were captives of their grief and guilt. Still are but the hold keeps loosening with every good memory, every attempt at finding genuine happiness in a raging sea of sadness.

Time seemed like everything and nothing at the same time but it has left its mark. They both come embarrassingly quickly but the notion of shame doesn't even cross their minds. This wasn't about the pleasure.

When they've caught their breath and cleaned up, they put on some clothes and climb into their bed together. This room has been steeped in melancholy for almost year. What was once a solace, a place of happiness, became their very own torture chamber. The walls have eavesdropped on countless fights and long hours of sobbing. The pillows soaked up what seems like gallons of tears.

Once upon a time their bedroom was filled with nothing but good memories. The kids often crawled into their bed and then Zayn and Harry woke up with an arm or a leg in their faces more often than not. They had a lot of amazing fucking sex here. Sage said her first word in there as she was crawling around their bed.

That night, they fall asleep holding each other after months of cold, desolate nights they spend either miles apart or on the opposite sides of the bed. It's not everything but it's enough. And enough is just the beginning.

xxx

Over the years, the kids developed a habit of sneaking into Zayn and Harry's bed in the morning. Sure, there were those rare nights when one of them had a nightmare and came in, tugging at their sleeves with teary eyes in the middle of the night. But as time passed, Zayn and Harry got more and more used to falling asleep alone, just the two of them and waking up with the bed a bit more crowded.

Erin started it when she was around three. She popped in for some cuddles and kisses before she had to go to kindergarten and her dads had to pay way more attention to her baby sister. Naturally, Sage picked up on it a year or so later. When Jack learned how to walk and graduated from a crib to a toddler bed, of course he just had to join his sisters. Who doesn't want cuddles even before breakfast? And if they managed to get there early enough, their dads would let them watch a cartoon on TV in their room.

It's mostly a weekend occurrence because just like Zayn and Harry, their children hate waking up early. Unfortunately, they all have to. So when everyone in the household gets to sleep in on the weekend, the kids don't hesitate a second and are in the master bedroom almost as soon as they wake up.

The Friday after Halloween, after a hurricane of feelings that melded things together rather than destroyed them, flew over the house, Zayn wakes up alone.

The big balloon of hope deflates depressingly. Of course, he left, Zayn thinks as he rolls over on his back. He sighs, staring at the ceiling aimlessly. Why did he think it would all be easy?

Then Zayn hears the water running in the ensuite bathroom. Within seconds, the door opens and Harry walks out, wearing only his checkered pyjama pants.

“You're here,” Zayn lets out without thought. He's probably staring at Harry as if he saw a ghost and not his own husband in their bedroom.

“Of course, I'm here,” Harry smiles a little, the heartache still lining his face underneath the shallow layer of happiness. “I just went to the loo. Where did you think I'd gone?”

He climbs back into bed and Zayn immediately wraps an arm around Harry's waist, pulling their chests together. They kiss for a bit, not caring about morning breath because when you've been with someone for fifteen years, it's more than likely you've been through nastier things together.

“I don't know,” Zayn replies honestly after a moment. “I was just scared this was too good to be true.”

Harry laughs softly. “I did too for a while. When I woke up and I felt that someone was pressed against my back and holding me I literally thought someone had broken in. Then, thankfully, I remembered that it was you and this incredible fucking relief just washed over me. I didn't even realise how much I hated sleeping alone until you were gone.”

“Well, I'm here now,” Zayn says, pushing a strand of hair out of Harry's face. “And you're not getting rid of me that easily again.”

“I wouldn't dream of it,” Harry affirms. “It's like half seven, we should still be sleeping. The girls will be up in a moment and I still feel like I slept only an hour.”

Zayn groans, closing his eyes. “I promised them pancakes last night. This will surely come to bite me in the arse in a bit.”

“Oh, I love your pancakes,” Harry chirps cheerfully. “You haven't made them in ages. But I don't think we have any blueberries.”

“Choc chips?”

“You know I don't like feeding the girls chocolate for breakfast,” Harry furrows his brows.

“C'mon, babe, they deserve chocolate for breakfast once a year,” Zayn protests. “We do too. You can make quinoa or something equally as disgusting and healthy for lunch.”

“Fine,” Harry chuckles. “But let's sleep. I feel like a rotten vegetable.”

Zayn surely isn't gonna protest that.

But their nap is rather short-lived. Zayn's roused from his sleep by a sudden weight on him and two screeching voices way too close to his ear. For a second he tries to hide his face in the back of Harry's neck but playing like he's still asleep has never worked on his daughters.

“Dad, you're here!” Sage screams as she hugs (meaning: suffocates) Zayn around his neck.

“Yes, I'm here, sweetie,” Zayn reluctantly opens his eyes and pulls his arm back from Harry's waist. He manhandles Sage a little so she's sitting on his chest. Not ideal but at least she's not actively choking him.

“Can we watch a cartoon?” Sage asks hopefully.

“Yes, can we watch Scooby Doo?” Erin joins Sage from the other side of the bed where she's pulling at Harry's hair. A careful eye would see she's actually trying to braid it.

“Of course you can,” Zayn says without hesitation. It's not bad to spoil his kids from time to time. Harry grins at him, shaking his head but reaches for the remote control to the TV either way.

“Magic word, girls?” Harry asks them as he sits up with Erin in his lap and the remote in his hand. “No Scooby Doo otherwise.”

“Please?” Sage and Erin drawl out at the same time at a volume way too high for a morning.

“Thank you very much,” Harry grins at them. “Okay, where did we stop watching last week?”

As the girls start shouting over each other which episode they actually watched last, Zayn too sits up against the headboard and cuddles Sage close to him. He watches the whole increasingly heated exchange, slightly moderated by Harry, with a smile. There are no words to describe how he missed all this. It was just two months but it doesn't matter. Even a week would've been too much.

One person is missing still and nothing can bring him back. But Zayn's grateful for whatever they have. He's thankful to even be alive, to be here with his two amazing daughters and an incredible husband. It's easy to try and look forward now, when everyone's got a smile on their faces and there's not a tear in sight but perhaps this is the driving force behind acceptance. Nothing is simply good or bad. Yeah, there's black and white but what about gray?

Time can't be moved forwards or backwards. It exists just once and then never again. So, as Zayn kisses the top of Sage's head and laces his fingers with Harry's in the middle of the bed, he chooses to enjoy this time. Even with all its pain lurking underneath the surface, even with the imperfections. No one knows if in ten years' time, this won't be one of his favourite memories.

xxx

Immersing yourself in a certain moment can make you forget all the other things happening in the world. That's kind of what it feels like when, after way too many Scooby Doo episodes, Zayn, Harry and the girls finally make their way downstairs to have breakfast. Erin and Sage have too good of a memory since the second they reach the kitchen, they start screaming about pancakes. They didn't seem so enthusiastic about them the night before but again, it was a completely different situation.

Zayn feels like he was transported a year back. Erin helps him make the batter and an even bigger mess than he would've made himself while Harry gets the tea and coffee going and Sage lays down the cutlery. Without much attention paid, it would've looked like any other joyous family breakfast on a day off. But that's only on the terribly shallow surface.

There's no high chair by the table, no special food made for the youngest one. It's tangible to them, this change. Even if, for nearly a year, they continued in the normal daily routine because of the girls, the mood was far more grim.

This morning, a very vulnerable air of happiness hangs around the room. The radio's on, the girls are laughing and Zayn and Harry are actually talking to each other like normal adults and not just two broken people who share children so they communicate for their sake. Change is slow but apparent. It's present in the little details that help glue the whole picture together and are the nourishment for the soul. Harry leaves a quick kiss on Zayn's cheek and Erin's head as he passes them on his way from the pantry. They don't try to sit the furthest away from one another as they in the breakfast nook. It feels natural when they talk about taking the girls to the cinema in the afternoon.

When they're all seated in the breakfast corner, pancakes with the tragically unhealthy chocolate that Harry whinged about in front of them, Erin nearly makes everyone choke on their food.

“Daddy, can Dad stay with us for good?” she asks as she casually continues to eat her pancakes. “I don't want him to leave again. And he stayed with you in the grown-up bedroom so you can't be mad at him. Can he, Daddy? Please?”

Zayn starts choking to the point where he has to down nearly a full glass of water. He didn't think Erin would actually ask Harry about this.

Harry watches him with an amused slight smirk, laced with a pinch of melancholy. It's still a sensitive topic and even if they had pretty good sex last night, not all can be fixed by that. A bit of a reassuring fact is that they did talk too. About the grief and the guilt. About the mistakes they've made since Jack had passed. But apart from Harry's nearly silent pleas of staying, nothing concrete has been agreed upon.

“Well,” Harry clears his throat and deliberately looks Zayn straight in the eye. “If Dad wants to, he can stay with us for good. Many years ago, before you two were even born, we promised something like that to each other. Even if it hasn't seemed like this in the past few months, I do intend to keep that promise.”

Months and months of anguish and heartbreak is recapped in the look they share then. It's a harsh reminder of the promise they made around eleven years ago now when they got married. That day, saying the vows and imagining the rest of their lives together was as easy as breathing. Nothing could've put the idea that they wouldn't be together at some point in their lives into their heads. They were meant to be together forever and that was it. Life has a funny way of going about things and even despite the belief of a forever, divorce proceedings were started. Well, it's gonna be something telling their lawyers to scrap the whole thing.

Harry looks at Zayn hopefully, anxiety lining his face. But Zayn just gives him a slight smile and an invisible nod that the girls won't catch. The way Harry's face lights up then is better than watching a sunrise in the most beautiful place in the world.

“Dad?” Erin asks expectantly, breaking the moment between her parents.

“Yeah, sweetheart?” Zayn looks at her, finally detaching his sight from his husband.

“So are you staying?”

“Of course,” Zayn replies and ruffles her hair as she grins at him. “How could I leave you two rascals for two entire weeks a month? That's insane. I'd miss you too much. And I guess I'd miss your Daddy too.”

The girls cheer, grinning at Zayn and then they start blabbering about all the things they need to do together, starting with the film and loads of popcorn later today. After a while Sage scoots up on the corner bench to Zayn, crawls into his lap and continues drinking from her sippy cup as if nothing happened. And that's enough to completely melt Zayn's heart. When he looks up from Sage, he feels Harry's eyes on him and sure enough, Harry is watching them with a sickeningly sweet smile, only half-listening to Erin's chatter about trick-or-treating last night.

“Can we go outside and play with the leaves?” Erin asks when she's done with her pancakes. Sage immediately perks up and is ready to run off. Those two, even despite the two years between them, are almost like twins sometimes.

“You need to put your jackets on first,” Harry says. “And boots. It's pretty chilly. Wait a moment while Dad and I clean up, then you can go.”

“You go with them, babe,” Zayn says, lifting up Sage as he stands up. “You did all this alone for like two months, go with the girls, I'll take care of the mess.”

Harry just gives him a smile and shifts all his attention to the girls. “Alright, let's get dressed, sweethearts. Sagey, c'mon.”

Erin's already run off to the mudroom when Zayn puts Sage down. Sage instead just walks to Harry and they leave the kitchen together.

After the kitchen's back to its pre-breakfast-tornado state, Zayn decides to give a call to the office that he's not coming in today. It's already almost midday but he figures better late than never. And thankfully, Arden picks up after the first ring.

“ Well, look who's alive and well,” she says in lieu of a greeting “ And here I was worrying you were lying dead in a ditch somewhere. ”

“Why would I be dead in a ditch?” Zayn chuckles. “I went trick-or-treating with my kids, not out drinking.”

“ London's dodgy, you never know who's lurking where ,” Arden dismisses it. “ I suppose you're not coming in today. ”

“Nope,” Zayn agrees. “Sorry I didn't let you know sooner. Did I have any meetings early in the morning?”

“ Yes, but I took care of them ,” Arden sighs. “ I hate leading meetings on a Friday but what wouldn't I do for you? Where are you? I hope you're not like, lying in a bed having a depressive episode.”

“No, I'm fine, don't worry about me,” Zayn says, eluding the question. Just when Arden goes to speak again, Erin and Sage start screeching outside as they play. It's more than well-audible in the kitchen thanks to an open window.

“ Hold up, was that Erin ?” Arden gasps. “ Are you home? Did you stay the night? What's happening?”

“Yes, I'm home,” Zayn admits. “We're taking the girls to the cinema later today. Some dumb Shaun the Sheep film. I hate that bloody sheep but the girls love it.”

“ We're? ” Arden relents. “ Oh my goodness! You must've stayed the night. Now this? What is happening? Are you and Harry okay now? Or are you both acting like strangers?”

Zayn sighs, walking around the kitchen. He pauses at the window and looks out at Sage and Erin, who are cheerfully running around the whole backyard. “I did stay the night. When I was about to leave the girls just started wailing and Erin said that she doesn't want me to leave like Jack did and it- it was horrible. Harry just broke down but then later in the night we talked and- we're working on it, I guess.”

“ Oh, bloody hell, I'm so sorry, darling ,” Arden says. “ Last week I got an automatic notification from my calendar on Jack's birthday and I just started bawling like a child. I can't imagine what you two must be going through. And, fuck, the divorce on top of it. It's just horrible.”

“Well,” Zayn winces. “I don't believe the divorce is happening anymore.”

The line is silent for a good while. “ What? ”

“I told you we're working on it,” Zayn says. “We talked quite a lot last night after the whole ordeal with the girls and then we kind of… you know.”

“ Oh my god ,” Arden shrieks. “ Oh my god! Are you taking the piss? No, of course, you aren't. People don't joke about these things. Wow! I don't wanna sound like a stuck-up arsehole but I told you so! I knew you two can't function without each other. Throwing so many years together away and so much love in such a terrible situation would've been foolish. I'm so happy you guys made up .”

“Yeah, same here,” Zayn chuckles. “I missed him so much. The girls too. I'm just happy to be back home. It's not all a walk in a park and I know there's a lot of crap coming our way still but at least we, and the girls as well, won't have to deal with the separation anymore.”

“ Yeah, of course ,” Arden says. “ Alright, well, the office hasn't erupted in flames without you, everything's fine. I'll go now, leave to your beautiful man and kids. Tell Harry I said hi. I'll be making my way round to yours soon either way. Alright, then see you on Monday! Bye! ”

“Bye,” Zayn chuckles and ends the phone call.

Naturally, he goes off to look for Harry since he can't see him with the girls in the backyard. A minute later, Zayn finds him leaning against the open sliding door in the living room, bundled up in a cardigan as he watches the girls play. Zayn slinks up behind him and wraps his arms around Harry's middle from the back, handing his chin over his shoulder.

“Arden says hi,” Zayn mumbles. “She said she'll be paying us a visit soon.”

“You called the office?” Harry asks. His hands find Zayn's on his stomach and he intertwines their fingers. The warmth from the touch spreads all the way to Zayn's heart.

“Yep,” Zayn agrees. “Wanted to spend the day with you and the girls.”

Harry sighs deeply and squeezes Zayn's hand tighter. “I missed you so much. There's an unimaginable amount of guilt attached to these words but it's true. Not having you around was horrible. I love you. I do.”

“I love you too,” Zayn says, the words coming as easy as breathing. “I missed you as well. The girls too. It was so hard, even just leaving the office every day and then coming back to an empty, cold flat.”

“Every single night, I was just kind of expecting to wake up with you pressed against my back but there was no one on your side of the bed,” Harry divulges. “I fucked up so badly with the divorce. Deep down, I felt like it was a mistake but I genuinely thought it would be better this way for you, for me, for everyone.”

“I know,” Zayn sighs.

They stand there silently for a long while, watching as Erin and Sage throw heaps and heaps of leaves at one another and then jump into piles they manage to put together. They're still so young, always carefree, no matter what happens. They move on, they laugh, they play. It all looks so simple.

“It's gonna be the anniversary soon,” Harry says out of nowhere. “I didn't even realise until a bit ago when I opened Instagram and someone posted that cheesy 'Hello November' things and I was like 'fuck, it really is November again?'. It feels like it's been at least a decade and only a day at the same time. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Zayn affirms. “Sometimes it's like I can't even remember what it was like before. How did we do things when he was still here? How was it just waking up happy on most days?”

“Do you think we will ever be able to truly move on?” Harry asks then. “Like, can we be happy for more than a few short moments? Will this fucking despair just hang around like a storm that never comes? Because I'm so tired. I'm just so fucking tired of always hurting and feeling guilty. Yet I can't stop it.”

“We will be,” Zayn says, trying to sound confident when he himself doesn't know if he'll be ever able to go more than an hour without thinking about Jack. If he'll ever be able not to see the image of Jack crying in the backseat every single time he looks in his rear-view. “We both need a shitload of therapy and like, time. We have Sage and Erin. We have each other. One day it has to get better.”

“I hope so,” Harry sighs. “I really fucking hope so.”

“I think we took a step in the right direction, though,” Zayn says. “After all, we're not breaking up. At least I hope not.”

“No, we're not,” Harry says resolutely. “We're definitely not. I realised that it won't be easy to fix, but I love you and I want to try.”

“Okay,” Zayn says quietly, tilting his head to leave a fleeting kiss on Harry's cheek. “That's all we have to do. Try. I have quite a lot of hope in us.”

“Love conquers all, wasn't it?”

“Something like that.”