chance connection |2| [zarry]

twohundredeightyseven

"What's that?" Freddie asks, pointing at the strawberries.

"Baby, you know what they are," Harry says, gently catching Freddie's hands before they poke at the fruit, praying for patience.

He loves Freddie and he has missed him so very much, but he was exhausted from filming and missing Zain and Freddie and everyone and from being pregnant, which had turned out a lot more tiring than he'd have expected, all the backaches and nausea and peeing. And Freddie is exuberant as always and happy to see Harry again, exuding energy when Harry just needs sleep and quiet.

"Strawberries," Freddie says. "But they're different in France-ish."

"French, baby," Harry corrects, amused. "It's called French."

"That's weird," Freddie shrugs, touching a carton of raspberries. "Can we get those? What are those?"

"Framboises," Harry reads off the sign and hopes no French person is close by to listen to him butcher their language. "Either raspberries or strawberries, baby. They'll go bad before we eat them all."

"No, they won't," Freddie protests, standing on his tiptoes to grab a carton of raspberries and put it into the shopping cart carefully, tongue poking out at the side of his mouth. "I'll eat loads and grandma and grandma will help."

"Will they?" Harry asks, watching Freddie select strawberries with an intense expression on his face. "They're both in Paris, though."

"But they'll be back," Freddie sighs like Harry's especially trying. "Grandma loves raspberries, she said."

"Did she?" Harry says, gently pushing the cart forward and not bothering got argue that they would not be coming back. Zain and Louis would arrive, though, so there was that.

Freddie attaches himself to Harry's waist, clinging and making it difficult to walk.

"Do you wanna sit in the cart?" Harry asks, trying to distract him. Freddie shakes his head stubbornly.

Harry stops in front of the cheese selection and strokes his hair, ignoring the way Freddie's pushing his head under Harry's shirt to push his nose against his belly as he tries to remember which cheese he was still allowed and which Zain had liked.

Freddie seems to finally have enough of abusing Harry's clothes and emerges, picking up cheeses at random to hand Harry.

"Baby, don't touch everything. We look with our eyes not hands," he says.

"But mummy," Freddie says, like he's been saying a lot.

"I mean it," he says and gives up on the cheeses, selecting a few at random. "Just your Orangina left, baby, then we can go home."

"Yes," Freddie cheers, squeezing between Harry and the cart to stand on it. "I love Orangina. We got all my favourites, mummy. Are we really having a babyclue?"

"Yea," Harry nods. "We'll start once we get home."

"Cool. I wanna light the fire."

"We'll see," Harry says because he's not up for supervising that.

"Daddy always lets me," Freddie protests.

"While he's standing right next to you," Harry says, stroking his hair and grabbing a few of the smaller bottles of Orangina, hoping Freddie wouldn't see the large ones. "Guess we'll have to wait for your dad."

Freddie sighs in annoyance, hanging himself over the handle of the cart a bit. It occurs to Harry that he hasn't mentioned Louis arriving today to Freddie and he's not sure Zain has either.