On The Line (Ashton Irwin)

Chapter 12- Now

Chapter 12- Now

-Ashton's POV-

"There he is, there's my- Ashton why are you on the floor?" Calum asked, running over to where I was curled up in a ball next to the mirror.

She was here. Madison was here and then she left like that. I had seen her, I had seen her through the mirror and now she was gone. But how?

"Madison..." I trailed off.

"Ash, Maddy's right here," Michael said, looking over at where my girlfriend still lay, asleep in her bed.

"She was here, I saw her." I told them. "I'm not seeing things, I know that's what you probably think, but I'm not." I said, sitting up and looking at them.

"Ashton, where do you think you saw her?" Luke asked.

"She was in the mirror. She was looking at me, all panicked, like I wasn't supposed to see her but she knew I did. Then an arm reached out and grabbed her, and then she was gone, just like that. She was here." I told them, putting my face in my hands.

"Ashton, what's on your bracelet?" Cal asked, noticing the leather strip, and I looked at Luke. He was the only friend who'd known about Austin, since he'd come with me to have the bracelets made.

"We were going to be uncles, guys," Luke said.

"Did the accident...?" Cal trailed off, but Luke shook his head.

"Happened a couple weeks before, Maddy just didn't want Ash to know until they were face to face. Anne knew, took Ashton to Austin's grave to go meet his son." Luke said sadly, staring down at his feet.

"I'm a father," I told them. "And I'll always be a father, whether or not Austin's here with us. He's in my heart, and he always will be."

"He'll be in our hearts too, Ash," Luke said, kneeling down and wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "He would've had the world's greatest uncles."

"Speaking of guys who would've been the world's greatest uncles, have you seen Harry at all since you came back?" Michael asked. "Or Lauren?"

I nodded. "Briefly. Saw them for dinner the second night I was here, two nights ago. Last night Luke and I went to Maccas, and then the first night I ate downstairs in the cafeteria. Besides them coming here for a bit before that dinner with them, I haven't seen them."

"Ash, you should go see your little siblings." Cal said.

"I'm afraid to leave her." I told them. "I'm afraid something bad will happen to her, and then I'm not going to be there. I told her I would protect her guys, and look. I was in LA for a few weeks, and I went on a tour, and she's here. I wasn't there for her."

"Ash, this isn't your fault." Michael said.

"Michael, she was on her way to the grocery store when she got in the accident." I said, standing up from my spot on the floor. "If I was here, maybe we would've ran out of groceries a few days before, and she wouldn't have had to go that day."

"Ash," Luke said, but I shook my head.

"The five of us could've hung out that day. Or maybe her and I would've just stayed on the couch, spent the day being lazy, like we would do all the time." I said, running a hand through my hair. "Look, I don't regret going on the tour, but if I had been here, everything would've been different."

"What else would've been different, Ashton?" Calum asked.

"I could've been here for her during the whole Austin thing. I would've helped her throughout her pregnancy. I'm not saying I could've stopped the miscarriage from happening, but I could've been there for her. Held her hand and been by her side whenever she cried, held her when she had been breaking. I wasn't able to do any of that." I said.

"But Ash, you couldn't have done anything differently, just know that." Luke said then, and I nodded, sitting down.

"Do you want to go see Harry and Lauren?" Cal asked then. "I can take you, and Luke and Michael can stay here with Maddy, text us if anything happens. Okay?"

I glanced at Madison once more before looking back at them and nodding. I grabbed her hand, the one with the bracelet tied to her wrist and brought it up to my lips, kissing it quickly and setting it back down.

"Okay," I nodded. "Let's go see them."

-Madison's POV-

"Milo, what do you mean we can't go back?" I asked him, watching as Ashton laid in a ball on the floor, and the door opened again, Luke coming in with Calum and Michael by his side.

"I mean we've disturbed the balance." Milo said. "I'm sorry, Maddy."

"Me too," I said. "I really can't see him again?"

"Sorry," he said. "I've still got rules as a guardian."

"Are there others like you?" I asked him. "I never really wondered that before, but now I'm curious. Are there?"

"Yes," Milo nodded. "There are. We used to have forms, what we had originally looked like, but now people don't see that. They see people who make them feel more comfortable around us, like how you see me as that blonde friend of yours."

"Yeah, Luke," I said. "Milo, when you say you originally looked like someone... were you alive before?"

"Once," he said. "A very, very long time ago."

"How'd you get a job as a guardian?" I asked him.

"I had a story similar to yours," he said. "I lived centuries ago, back when if a person was, say, in a coma, they were left for dead. I wasn't in a coma exactly, but I was certainly in the same place you were, on the line."

"You were like me?" I asked him.

He nodded. "In the sense that I had come here, to the line. When I was on the line, my guardian's name was Arthur. I had spent months on the line, Arthur offering me the choice over and over again. To remain on the line until I was either healed enough to go back to my body downstairs, or I was so damaged that I had no choice but to move on. My other option was simple: to move on."

"Which did you choose?" I asked him.

"I didn't at first," he said. "I waited until I could see which decision would be right for me. So, in a way, I decided to wait until my body was healed enough. I was a soldier, and my body was lost, so nobody could find me to bury me, which would've killed my body, so my decision had more time to be made. But eventually, I realized that in the end, I'd have no choice but to move on."

"So you did," I continued for him. "But how did you get a job as a guardian then?"

"Because I had spent so much time on the line, I knew how everything worked, and was offered a job as a guardian. They're always needed. So I took the job." he said. "And if you ever have to, or decide to, move on, instead of going back to your body, you'll be offered the job as well."

"So, what you're saying is, if I have to move on, then I'd lose this body and become someone comforting to whoever I'd need to help as a guardian?" I asked him, and he nodded.

"Correct," he said.

"Interesting," I told him. "Now, Milo, here's another question. If I do go back to my body downstairs, and I wake up, will I remember this? Will I remember my time on the line? Because I've never heard any stories of people who've been here before."

He shook his head. "No, Maddy, I'm sorry. If you ever go back, you'll have no recollection of the line, or even of me."