No Matter What // Harry Styles AU -- Dunkirk inspired

Chapter Fifty-Six

The four of us play like children, laughing and teasing one another while we bounce from ride to ride. Every now and then we stop to grab a treat or try our luck at a game booth. Lucy and I get a massive kick out of the boys when they become irrationally competitive at the bucket toss. I nearly have to drag Harry away so he doesn't egg Niall into blowing all his cash just to prove who is the better thrower. 

Somewhere in all the fun, the night manages to slip away. As the crowd begins to thin and the already cold night turns to near freezing, Lucy pleads for us all to take one final spin around the carousel. She doesn't really give any of us a chance to protest, but I wouldn't anyways. I'm desperate to add as many moments to this perfect night as I can.

Niall trots up to the empty line, holding open the wooden gate for Lucy to get on the ride. She saunters ahead and gracefully hops up onto a white horse. I throw my head back laughing when Niall is yelled at for jumping on the horse beside her and standing on the stirrups as if he's leading the calvary. I haul myself up onto a horse of my own while Harry follows and stands beside me. I run my fingers over the plastic jewels the line the bridle, marveling how they catch the yellow lights of the carousel.

"Horses, at the ready!" a man in a heavy coat hollers, before pulling a metal lever. The music swells and without warning, I'm called back to my childhood. The familiar tune of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair, now transformed into a tinny little jingle, fills my ears and pulls at my heart strings. 

"This song," I say without thinking as I marvel at the painted animals and streams of yellow lights that hang above us. "I haven't heard it in ages."

"Is it a favorite of yours?" Harry asks.

"I guess you could say so. My father used to sing it to my mother all of the time. In fact, as soon as I got good enough at the piano, he'd spend hours badgering me to learn it. He even bought her a little music box that would sing this song when you'd open it." 

The carousel makes a quick and hard lurch forward. I giggle at how surprise leaps across Harry's face at the sudden movement.

"How ya doing there?" I ask.

"I think he did that on purpose," Harry grimaces as we slowly turn past the ride operator. I open my mouth to tell Harry not to be so silly, but the young man turns his nose up as we pass by, and for a moment I wonder if he did.

"So does your mum have brown hair?" he asks, curiously. "I always imagined her to have hair like yours." The thought of Harry spending even a moment trying to imagine my family gives me a little thrill. That thrill, though, is quickly replaced by the realization that my mother doesn't have brown hair.

"Strangely, she does have hair like mine," I laugh. "Is it odd that it's never dawned on me to ask why he always liked that song?"

"I think it begs a question," he says, laughing. "But I haven't a clue about a lot of things in my family so I think you're alright." He nervously smiles after his casual remark. 

"I guess that's me too though," I reply, smiling back to comfort him. "I never really thought of them as people before."

Harry cocks an eyebrow, gazing at me curiously.

I pause, trying to find the right words, before explaining, "I suppose that to me, they've always just been Mother and Father. I never really considered them as individuals. You know, as young folks with their own troubles- with their own stories."

Harry seems to ponder this, knitting his brows as he quietly take it in. Worry flashes in my mind that I've treaded too closely to a painful topic for him. 

"I guess I just wish I had asked them more about it," I try again. I so desperately wish I had my mother to talk to. Did she go to such silly carnivals as a girl? Did she know not to talk so freely? Did she ever feel like her heart was going to fall out of her stomach when a boy looked at her? Did she know how to stay calm and collected or did she just turn beet red like me?