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"And what do you want to be when you grow up?"
"An astrophysicist." Harry and Louis beamed at their eight-year-old daughter, watching her teacher's eyebrows jump.
"Well, that's an awfully big word for an awfully little girl," said the teacher, Mrs. Schwartz. Harry saw his husband roll his eyes in his peripheral vision.
"She's awfully smart," snapped Louis, huffing and crossing his arms in defense.
"Dad," Alice sighed, elbowing her father in the leg. You see, the small family is at a parent-teacher meeting, one of the mandatory midterm ones her school always has. Harry usually sits quietly and smiles and nods, asking a few questions here and there and reminding his daughter how proud he is of her. Louis, on the other hand, picks fights when he thinks Alice's teacher's are wrong, stupid, lazy, neglectful - and the list goes on, but Louis just wants the best for his daughter.
"We're very proud," Harry smiles politely, trying not to laugh at his husband. "She's got her goals set, and we only want to help her get there." Harry's gotten good at resolving those little conflicts, it's something he prides himself on. Louis and Alice, and Mrs. Schwartz, all relax a little.
"Yes," the teacher says, "well. Alice Tomlinson-Styles is one bright child. She's doing well in all of her classes and she catches on with new material quite quickly. Her only weakness is the constant daydreaming in class. Now, Alice, if I were you, I would put away these scientist fantasies of yours for now, and focus on the more important things." Mrs. Schwartz combs her silver hair behind her ears with her bony fingers.
"More important than the rest of her life?" Louis questions, quirking an eyebrow. He looks to Harry for support.
Harry smiles. "Mrs. Schwartz, with all due respect, Alice has always known what she wants in life, and my husband and I have complete faith and pride in all of her dreams. Perhaps you should be encouraging your students to come up with dreams of their own instead of placing dreams upon them," he says, a somewhat rude statement that he managed to make sound polite.
"They are children, they musn't be distracted with silly fantasies at such a young age. Sir, are you trying to tell me how to do my job?" the older woman asks, growing angry.
"Somebody's got to do it," Harry smiles some more, then stands. "Now if you'll excuse us, we've got dinner reservations at 6:00 and it is 5:45. We must be going. Always a pleasure, Mrs. Schwartz," he says, gathering Alice up into his arms and waiting for Louis to stand with them. Then Harry gives the woman a polite nod, and Louis gives her a cocky grin, and the family departs from the classroom without waiting for her response.
"Daddy," Alice says, climbing onto Harry's back.
"Yes, love?" Harry responds, reaching for Louis' hand with his free arm.
"Do you think my dreams are just silly fantasies?" Harry's heart broke a little at her words, and he felt himself grow a bit angry with her teacher for even planting such ideas into her young mind.
"Of course not, Al, you can do anything. You know that, you can do anything." Louis squeezes his hand.
"Daddy," Alice says again, resting her chin on Harry's shoulder. Her curly brown hair tickles Harry's jaw.
"Yes, love?" "Do we really have dinner reservations?" the girls asks, stumbling a little on the word 'reservations.' Harry and Louis both grin at their daughter.
"No, baby," Louis smiles, "your daddy was just trying to get us out of there. But I bet if you ask him nicely, he'll take us to get pizza and ice cream to celebrate your grades," he purrs, looking up at Harry with an arched eyebrow. Harry grumbles something under his breath about how unhealthy that meal is, but when his daughter is whining "Pleeeeeease, daddy," into his ear and his loving husband is stroking the back of his hand softly with his thumb, Harry is weak. How could anybody not be?
"Fine," Harry grumbles, "but only because you two are the loves of my life."
"Thank you!" Alice cheers, grinning.
Harry smiles. "Anything for you, Al."
++
"Dad, can you sign this?" Alice asks, bounding down the stairs before school. She's wearing sweatpants underneath her uniform skirt, because they're comfy and it's cold outside. Harry takes a sip from his coffee and eyes his teenaged daughter up and down.
"Is that a dress code violation?" he asks, smiling, and reaches out for the paper in her hand. She nods and hands him the paper, walking across the kitchen to pour herself a glass of orange juice. Harry reads over the form; a request to go on a tour of Cambridge University, with her school. A field trip. The thing is, Cambridge is Alice's dream school, it's the top school in the UK for the study of astrophysics, she's been seriously looking at it. So Harry - of course - willingly signs the form and tosses Alice a granola bar, then hands her the form. She beams at him and gulps down all of her orange juice.
"Wanna hear a joke before you leave?" Harry asks, watching Alice pack all of her stuff into her bag. "What did one cell say to the other cell when he stubbed his toe?" Harry grins, before Alice can reply.
"Mitosis," Alice replied, kissing her father on the cheek. "See you after school, love you."
Harry smiles. "Love you too, dove. Hey, have fun at Cambridge today, take pictures so I can tweet them. Will you ask somebody to take a picture of you in front of a sign or something? Actually, now that I think about it, I'm free today, do you need a last-minute chauffeur? I could drive a few of your friends too, if-"
"Let her leave, Harry," a groggy voice croaks, before two soft arms wrap around Harry's chest. "You'll be great today, Al," Louis mumurs, hugging his husband from behind.
"Thanks, old man," Alice says, grinning at Louis, before walking out the door. "Anything for you, Al," Louis mumbles into Harry's hair, kissing his head. "So fuckin' proud of her. She's gonna be incredible, you know?"
"She already is incredible, Lou," Harry murmurs, kissing his husband's wrists.
Louis yawns. "Come back to bed now. We've got that interview tonight, gotta be rested up to brag on our daughter."
++
"So, it's been nearly twenty-five years since the forming of One Direction," the interviewer said, giving all four boys a charming smile. "What are your lives like, now that most of you are leading families outside of the band?"
Niall speaks first, his hair now entirely brunette and reading glasses on his nose. "Absolutely incredible. All of us are married now, everybody has at least one kid, we're all still really close. I'm actually Harry and Louis' daughter's godfather, so that's cool," Niall says.
"Yeah, they apparently like you better," Liam jokes, elbowing Niall. Louis smiles at Harry.
"Our daughter is the oldest, out of us four, she's in her third year of high school. Incredibly bright girl," Harry says, smiling as he talks.
"That's right," Niall says, "I saw her name in the paper a while ago, some award or-"
"Dean's Honor Roll, yes, she's the number one student in the school," Louis cuts in, beaming. "You know, she wants to be an astrophysicist."
"Oh really?" the interviewer asks, throwing a charming smile at the camera.
"Yes. She's set upon going to Cambridge, we're sure she'll get there. We're so proud of her," Louis says, smiling and looking up at Harry.
"Yeah," Harry says, "she comes straight home and finishes all her homework by dinner time, sometimes she goes to school early to tutor some underclassmen, she's incredible. We're very proud," he finishes. At this point, the interviewer looks like he's tired of hearing about Alice, but Harry and Louis couldn't care less. They're insanely proud of her and they want everybody to know. Sure, maybe Alice is at home right now watching this interview and rolling her eyes at any mention of her name. But at least she knows how proud her parents are of her. Alice is the best thing that ever happened to Harry and Louis, really, since each other. They've always been so supportive of everything she's ever wanted, and she knows that if she wanted to just shove all of her success aside, set different goals for her future, they'd support her in that, too. It's because of her parents that Alice knows that she can do anything.
Once, when she was younger, one of her teachers pulled her aside after a class. She first told her how smart she is, and how intelligent she is, and that her future is going to be bright. Then she said, "Your mom and dad must be so proud."
"Actually," Alice replied, "I have two dads." Her teacher was shocked, to say the least (personally, I have no idea why. It's the 21st century.).
"Oh," she said, "well, certainly your home life is very different, then."
"Oh, yeah," Alice nodded, trying so hard not to roll her eyes, "twice the Dad Jokes, all the love and support. You know, sometimes they only wake up early to make me breakfast and see me before school. Sometimes they even tell me they love me. Can you imagine? How is a well-rounded individual such as myself supposed to function in a household full of strong family values and morals and just abounding in all the love a family could ever need?"
As you can see, Alice loves her parents right back. They're a good family, they're good together.
The rest of the interview went well. Harry and Louis couldn't resist bragging on their daughter a little more as the night progressed, but they weren't too embarrassing. At least, they didn't think so. After the interview was over, Harry bent to hug his husband, murmuring softly into his hair.
"We're good parents," he says, running his fingers along Louis' back. Louis simply nods in response and smiles into Harry's chest. "C'mon, Boo," Harry mumbles, holding Louis softly as they walk out to their car.
The couple slide into the backseat as their driver congratulates them on another great interview. Both of them murmur little appreciations to the driver before cuddling up to each other again. They're proud of their daughter. They're proud of each other. They're in love.
"Harry," Louis mumbles, climbing into his husband's lap. "Our daughter is incredible, she's gonna do incredible things."
So when they got an acceptance letter to Cambridge University, a couple months down the road, nobody was surprised, but everybody was excited. They took a trip up to Cheshire to visit Harry's side of the family and tell everybody about it. They went to Doncaster to tell Louis' side of the family. Harry let the whole world know by posting a lovely black and white image of their beautiful dark-haired daughter wearing a Cambridge sweatshirt and holding up her letter, beaming from ear to ear. Louis would always subtly bring it up in fan meetings, any time or way he could.
"So where are you thinking about going to Uni? Yeah? My daughter is going to Cambridge, yeah, gonna be an astrophysicist. Crazy, we're excited," Louis would say, grinning, before the fan would tell him how amazing that is and what a great dad he is, what a great couple he and Harry are.
And he knows.
++
Harry poured two cups of coffee, one for his daughter, and one for his husband, then took his usual seat next to Louis at the table. Alice is visiting for the holiday, and she hasn't seen her parents in weeks. She's been so busy, so many projects and analyses and constant studying. But all her professors admire her, they recognize how bright she is, how driven she is.
"So, tell us about your most recent project," Harry says, blowing on his coffee. Louis mumbles some sound of encouragement, still not a morning person, although his husband and daughter both are. Alice settles into her seat, and takes a breath.
"Well, should I use sciencey terms or words that you'll understand?" she laughs, smiling fondly at her fathers and warming her palms on the mug.
"Dumb it down for us, love," Louis says, taking a gulp of coffee. And it takes her a solid fifteen minutes, but Alice explains her project to her adoring parents, and once they understand, they are incredibly impressed.
"I'm no astrophysicist," Harry says slowly, "but that sounds like a really big deal."
"It's a huge deal, actually, it's like the biggest thing I've ever done, for a while it was actually deemed impossible. So, yeah," Alice hums, "it's a bit impressive."
As you can imagine, Harry and Louis went out spreading the news of Alice's work everywhere they could in all their usual methods. And the thing is, she doesn't mind anymore, she just views it as another sign of her parents' undying love for her. She knows how lucky she is. She knows how much they love her. And they know she loves them too. Everything they could ever want, just the three of them. So one night when the three of them all went out to dinner, then Harry and Alice both fell asleep on the drive home, all Louis could think when he looked at the two of them was, "Always in my heart."
Always.