15 Days of One-Shots

It's Fine. I'm Here.

15 Days of One-Shots (6/15) 

A call in the night can change anything. One phone call, informing Louis that his Mum had passed, pulled him and Harry into the depths of grief, with only each other to cling to as they faced an uncertain future. 

Louis and Harry were curled up together in bed when the phone rang, late one night. The twenty-year-old groaned and rolled over into his stomach for the phone and answered it with a sleepy, “Hello?”

A second later he sat up straight in bed, pulling Harry fully out of sleep as well.

“Lottie, Lottie, slow down!” Louis said frantically, rolling out of bed and scrambling quickly around the room, tugging on pants and shirts, while Harry watched sleepily from the bed. “Alright, okay, okay. I’m coming, just. No, don’t cry, I need you to be strong for the other girls, okay? Just for a couple of hours? I know it’s hard. I’m coming. I promise. I love you. I’m coming.”

He was out the door without a word, only remembering to tell Harry what was going on, halfway to Doncaster.

He rung Harry, in the car, to inform him his Mother was dead.

-o-

 

Harry ended up driving to Doncaster the next morning, driving straight to Louis’ house that looked shockingly normal for the tragedy that had struck.

Pink, child sized, bikes we scattered in the lawn and neighborhood kids were out, running around in lawns, their giggles mocking the tragedy inside the Tomlinson house.

Louis answer the door, eyes redrimmed, hair askew and Harry immediately found himself with an armful of Louis Tomlinson, as the boy clung to him, shoulders trembling.

“It’s fine,” Harry whispered, pulling Louis closer, “It’s fine. It’s fine. Its fine. I’m here.”

“I-I d-don’t-“

“It’s fine. It’s fine. I here,” Harry repeated, pulling Louis with him, into the dreary house. He held Louis against him the hallway by the front door, eyes trying not to drift around and look at the various pictures of Jay with her children. Being back in the house was like pouring salt in a wound.

“Where are the girls?” Harry whispered, a few minutes later, after Louis had stopped trembling and Louis sighed tiredly into Harry’s shoulder, pulling back and looking up into Harry’s eyes.

“They’re sleeping, or in bed at least. Daisy and Phoebe didn’t get to sleep until five this morning. It was-” Louis swallowed thickly, “It was a rough night.”

Harry nodded, and linked his hand in Louis’, tugging him gently along to the empty kitchen. He helped Louis settle himself in a chair, and then fussed around the unknown kitchen, pouring two cups of tea, before joining Louis at the table.

“It was a car crash,” Louis muttered, staring down into his cup of tea, hands shaking, “They say she’s lucky, because she died instantly. H-how is that lucky?”

“It’s not babe,” Harry whispered, reaching out and catching Louis’ hand, closing his own around the trembling hand, “I am so sorry.”

Louis nodded distractedly, “Theres just so much to do. My uncle is working on the funeral, we’ll have to fit it in between the Brits and the KCAs-“

“Lou, don’t worry about work,” Harry sighed but Louis shook his head, eyes clenched together tightly.

“I have to,” Louis muttered, voice wobbling, “I have to. She’d want it, she’d, I can’t, I don’t-“

“Shh,” Harry soothed, leaning forward and brushing Louis’ forehead with a tender kiss, “It’s fine. It’s fine. I’m here.”

“D-don’t leave m-me. My Mum left me, please don’t leave me too. I-I can’t…”

“Never.”

-o-

 

The funeral was fit in, the weekend between The Brits and the KCAs.

Harry had been playing house with Louis, for the time being, helping Louis and his step-dad with the girls, tiptoeing around a family’s grief.

“Harry,” a quiet, timid voice, called his attention away from the pancakes he was attempting to make on the Tomlinson’s stove. He turned around and smiled at Daisy, who had tugged on the dress Lottie had laid out for her, a black velvet dress Louis had spent a small fortune on. “Can you tie this ribbon?”

Harry bent down to her level, and tied the best bow he could manage, the silky ribbon falling down her back.

“You look very pretty,” Harry declared and Daisy smiled slightly, before her smile dropped.

“My Mummy is dead,” she whispered and Harry’s heart stopped painfully in his chest.

“I know love,” Harry whispered, opening up his arms and letting Daisy fall into them, pulling her into a tight hug, “Its going to be okay. It’s fine. It’s fine. I’m here.”

“It’s time to go,” Louis suddenly appeared in the doorway, face void of emotion, swallowed by an expensive, custom fit suit.

“I was going to make pancakes-“

“We’ll eat them when we get back,” Louis muttered, reaching down and pulling Daisy up in his arms.

Harry thought out mentioning the fact that the pancakes would be cold and stiff, by the time the funeral was over, but it didn’t seem important, at all.

The graveyard was crowded, and Harry made to hang near the back of the crowd, with Liam, Niall and Zayn who’d all driven up the night before, to pay their respects. However, when Harry made to leave the Tomlinson family, who was seated front row by the coffin, Louis reached out, gripping his hand tightly.

“Don’t leave me,” Louis begged, voice breaking, eyes wide, threatening to tear and Harry’s own eyes began to water.

“Never,” Harry assured, taking a step forward so that he was walking side-by-side to Louis, clenching his hand, the Tomlinson girls leading the way to the front, to their dead mother’s coffins. “It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. I’m here.”

“I know,” Louis whispered, tear trailing down his face as the ceremony began.