Broken (a Niall Horan love story)

Chapter 76~ The End

"Hey, Navaeh," Niall called from the kitchen, "the chicken is almost done; are you coming to sit at the table or are we eating in the living room again?" Oliver, figuring out that he had come right before dinner, gave me a small pat on the shoulder and well wishes before leaving. I closed the door behind him as silent tears began to streak down my cheeks without control. Since I hadn't answered him back, Niall was coming out of the kitchen to see what I was doing, "I got you some more wafers too so that you can dip them in the ice cream and-." He was cut off when he finally reached the foyer and saw the tear tracks on my cheeks.

He quickly made his way over to me, putting his hands on my shoulders as he looked me in the eyes. His grip was gentle and his eyes were probing while he had a bit of panic written on his features. "Hey, what's wrong? Did I do something again?" he questioned urgently. My tears were wiped away as best as they could be with his thumb and I shook my head when he had stopped trying to get the tears to stop.

"James is dead," I told him, and I had no doubt that he could hear the relief in my words. I expected him to be surprised; I expected to see his jaw drop at the news. However, he didn't seem taken aback at all. He just looked at me with a solemn gaze and then brought me into a hug that I desperately needed. My arms looped around his neck as I held him as close I could and cried quietly. "I'm finally free," I muttered only to have his arms tighten around me in response to the statement. Safe. I was finally safe.

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"Once upon a time, there used to be a very sad princess that was under the control of a horrible monster," Niall's voice drifted from the twins' room along with the soft light from the lamp that was in there. It had been a long day; Davey—being the newborn that he was—had spent hours crying bloody murder and nearly drove Niall and I insane. The girls were also being a handful; they were whining a lot throughout the day and eventually Niall figured out that they were jealous of the attention that Davey had been getting from us. They were only four; they weren't aware of the fact that babies needed a lot of attention until Niall and I explained it to them. So, Niall had decided to calm their worries about us not loving them anymore by cuddling up with them on one of the beds and telling them a story.

I walked to the door frame and leaned up against it so that I could look at the scene with a smile. The two little girls were tucked under his arms as he let his chin rest on Hope's head lightly. He had a small smile on his lips that probably mirrored my own, and he continued with a fond tone, "The monster hurt her very badly and was very inconsiderate of the princess. And one day, when the monster was being particularly mean to the princess, she ran away from the monster and hid under a big tree." The girls gasped at the words as if they were the most shocking things that they had ever heard.

"Not too far away, there was a prince playing a game of footie with his friends. One of his friends kicked the ball so hard that it accidentally hit the princess. The prince, who was so worried about whether the princess was okay or not, rushed over to her. After figuring out that she was okay, the prince and the princess became friends and they talked all of the time." My smile grew as I realized that he was telling them our story with that fairytale twist to it. They were none the wiser, but I knew.

"And they got married and lived happily ever after?" Charity prompted as she played with Niall's hand, tracing her tiny fingers through the gaps between his larger ones. Niall chuckled but shook his head before going on,

"Not quite yet. You see, the bad bad monster was still out there, and he was very mean to the princess still. The prince knew about the monster, and he wanted to save the princess, but he didn't know how to. The princess was strong, though; she saved herself from the horrible monster and the prince whisked her away to somewhere where the horrible monster would never get to her again." My fingers tapped against my thigh lightly; the smile never left my face as I continued to look at my husband and two daughters all cuddled up.

"Were they happy after that, daddy?" Hope wondered, angling her head up so that her brown eyes could look into his while she waited for the answer.

"Mhm; they got married and had two beautiful little girls that were their whole world;" he bopped her nose and then did the same to Charity which earned big cheesy smiles and high pitched giggles. They snuggled even closer into him as he let out a hum and they all settled down after the short moment of excitement. "And the prince took care of the nasty monster so that it would never hurt his family and so that they could all live happily ever after." The last part caught my attention; I straightened up as my mind processed the words and my eyes widened ever so slightly. I silently wondered if I was reading too much into the finishing sentence; surely Niall didn't mean that he had something to do with James' death. No, my mind was just running wild again and it was silly to assume such a thing (even if he had been gone the day after I told him about my disturbing visit to the jail).

Part of me didn't want to know the truth. So, I didn't ask him when he came to bed that night. I was safe; my family was safe. How that had happened didn't matter. What did matter was that we were happy, and I wanted it to stay that way.

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Ah, finally, we reach the end of this story. It was a long and hectic ride, yeah? Thanks for all the votes, comments, and reads on Broken. And--sorry for my shameless self advertisement--check out the other stories in this series (Ditched, Crazy, Created, and Found) for little snippets of these two love birds. I hope you enjoyed and, for the last time in this story:

-cow_queen