Count On Me | Niam

Count On Christmas

Christmas 2011

"It's great, Mum. Really. Chloe loves it, won't stop playing with it. Happiest she's been all day. Yeah, speak again soon."

Hanging up the phone, Niall pulled a face as he looked down at his daughter, the rattle his parents had sent her discarded on the floor, forgotten as the eight-month-old occupied herself with chewing on and playing with the wrapping paper instead. Dropping to the floor so he was sat opposite Chloe, Niall gave her a fond smile, setting his phone down on the floor and picking up a piece of wrapping paper, one of the scraps his daughter had discarded, twirling it through his fingers as he absentmindedly watched Chloe playing.

His phone call to his parents had definitely been a lie, Chloe, as predicted, had been more thrilled with the wrapping paper than the few gifts Niall had managed to sort for her, and the gift his parents had sent was no exception to that. The rattle, gilt, gaudy thing that it was, had been discarded the moment Niall had helped her unwrap it, and Chloe had instead grabbed at the paper it had come in and the ribbon stuck to the wrapping.

The gesture was nice, though, and was one of the first attempts his mum had made at involving herself in his and Chloe's lives since she'd been born, having had little to no contact with Niall since he'd told them everything, yet the existence of her first granddaughter seemed to have prompted her to get back in touch. So far, she was only really interested in Chloe, but Niall dared to hope that maybe, one day, his mum would stop with the cold shoulder and actually look him in the eye.

Niall pretty much lived on hope most days, living on the hope that he'd getter a better job, one with less twelve-hour shifts that meant he would be away from Chloe less; the hope that Chloe would take to sleep in through the nights properly, something she'd managed for roughly a month before deciding that she'd rather be awake, and there was the secret hope he had that Missy and Reece would come back, or at least live somewhere closer so that he could actually call them one in a while without it costing him an arm and a leg. Then there was the hope that one day, he'd wake up and his first thought wouldn't be about Liam.

That hope seemed rather far-fetched, though, especially since the first face he saw every morning looked like Liam in miniature. Chloe was Liam's fucking carbon copy, with his dimples, brown eyes, even the mole on her left cheek, and that was something that made it increasingly difficult to forget about Liam, and stop wishing him either dead or there, with Niall.

He pushed those thoughts away, focusing on Chloe and her smile the made his day seem a little brighter, moving her presents from underneath the small, fake tree he'd bought last minute and stacking them on top of the chest of drawers he'd crammed into their small apartment by her crib, putting Chloe in her crib for a nap before he turned back to the shitty ready meal for one that constituted his Christmas meal.

******

Christmas 2012

"So, Mum, it's lovely to see you. Really great. I didn't know you were even in London, let alone here for Christmas."

Opening the door to invite his family in, Niall tried his best to smile, tugging a little on the hem of his t-shirt and wishing he wasn't still in his pyjamas as his mother gave him an icy smile. Regardless, he welcomed her and her husband into his flat, becoming aware of just how painfully small it was as they crowded inside, taking over the kitchen area whilst also crowding his living room.

Leaving his mum and Chris with tea, Niall took Chloe into the cramped bathroom and dressed her in the nicest outfit he had for her, donated to him by one of the ladies in the local charity shop, sympathising with her confused protests as he got dressed himself. Taking Chloe back out to the main room, Niall pasted another smile onto his face, adjusting his hold on the nearly two-year-old as he introduced her to Maura. "Mum, this is Chloe, your granddaughter."