Imagines with Niall Horan

55. He gives you bad news

At night the snow lost its bright white glare that it gained from the sun, and instead took on a pale blue hue that was given by the midnight moon. Flakes were still falling gently, but it wasn't as heavy as it had been over the past few days.

Niall stepped off the porch steps, watching with curiosity as the pale skin of his foot sank through the four inches of white powdery substance, the cold barely registering in his daze.

He had been holding it back all day; the tears, the grief, the despair. All for a life lost. He hadn't told anyone. Not yet. Not now that the snow had come: he had snowmen to build and snowballs to throw and dodge. He couldn't tell anyone. Not even her. Not for a few days, at least. He needed to process this on his own before he could even try and form the words in his mouth to repeat it.

He looked back to the house. He was halfway down the garden path now, and glancing down at his feet he saw they had turned blue, almost purple, from his midnight excursion. Looking up he could see the stars, pinpricks of light and fire in the dark blanket of the night sky.

Of the conversation he had had that day, only one word stood out at the forefront if his mind: terminal.

Just thinking the word made him want to be sick, to sob, to clutch onto life that little bit tighter. Terminal.

He tried, but he couldn't even mouth the whole word before choking on air. How could he possibly say it out loud to his wife?

Niall heard the back door fly open but didn't turn. He heard the scurried footsteps that flew off the porch and then the crunching of someone approaching in the snow.

"Niall, honey, you're not wearing shoes!" She cried when she got to him, her arms instantly wrapping around Niall's shoulders and leading him indoors. "What are you even doing out here?" Niall did not reply, just allowed himself to be led numbly. "It's so cold! You'll catch your death if you're not careful."

And that's when Niall fell to his knees in his wife's arms and broke down.