corporate affairs [Niall Horan AU]

E P I L O G U E

[a/n]: thank you all for sticking with elouise until the end! love you all to bits. i was originally going to do a longer epilogue, but i think this ties everything up nicely.

also-- the fire and the flood will be the next fanfic! thank you guys for commenting for the one you liked best!!!

xoxo madi

E P I L O G U E

The setting sun has just set fire to the sky as the couple enters the cemetery. It had been three years or so since they'd been in New York City, but the time that passed hadn't stopped that familiar feeling of home from blooming in their chests as soon as the plane had landed on the tarmac. The young wife holds an oversize bouquet of vibrant flowers that almost hides her swelling middle--almost.

She waits patiently for her husband, who has started aging, just enough for him to look more like a father and less like a bachelor thanks to that last touch of blonde in his hair that had finally faded. When he emerges from the town car, he's carrying their daughter on his hip, who reaches impatiently for her mother, a cross of a smile and an impatient grimace on her face. Their daughter had been part of the reason for their absence from the city, as parenthood had changed their days from revolving around the sun to revolving around the toddler before them.

The wife, who used to answer to Elouise, now answers almost strictly to "momma". Motherhood has become her most elegantly, and her husband, who used to go by Niall (but now finds it preferable to answer to 'dada'), watches in awe as she takes their baby girl in her arms without crumpling the bouquet in her other hand.

"Give them to me, darling," Niall says quietly, careful not to speak too loudly, considering their current location.

"Thank you. Do you know who we're visiting, Margaret?" Elouise asks her daughter as her husband takes her free hand in his.

"No, momma," the young girl answers seriously. Her chubby fingers wrap themselves in her mother's hair, trying hard not to pull.

"We're going to visit your grandpa Steve. That's why you picked out those pretty flowers." Elouise places a kiss on her daughter's forehead, pausing to set her on the ground when she can feel her back straining. Niall sends her a concerned glance, his eyes lingering on the pronounced roundness in her belly. "I'm fine, just a little tired."

Niall folds his wife under his arm, kissing her left temple. There had been complications with Margaret's delivery, complications that left them thinking they'd be incapable of having another baby again. By a miracle (and a little too much champagne last Christmas Eve), Elouise had woken up five months ago with a stomach bug and a little tenderness in the breasts. Niall had known before she had even finished vomiting that she was pregnant again, just in the familiar way her skin had been glowing for the two minutes of peace they'd gotten when she had woken. "Don't push yourself too hard, I know you're tired from the plane ride."

She smiles at him and nods. "Only a little farther. Look at how fast Maggie is now," she says as their daughter teeters over the stone path, her curls bouncing in time with her footsteps. Inside her belly, the flutter of growing feet make her rub her belly affectionately and Niall knows what's happening just by the way she smiles. "Your son is frustrated by the lack of leg room."

"He was kicking a lot last night," Niall remarks, placing his hand on the spot where Elouise directs him, so he can feel his son's tiny feet.

"How do you know?" She asks, turning her watchful eye from Maggie to Niall, briefly.

"Maggie woke up with a wet diaper, and when I got back from getting her back to sleep I was curious if someone was rolling around while you slept." Niall rubs his thumb across the thrumming part of her belly before he notices Maggie running towards him, her uncle Harry chasing behind her with a wide grin. Niall catches Maggie as Harry engulfs Elouise in a hug.