Love Me Like You Do (z.h. mpreg)

chapter twenty-eight

"Sometimes when you're in a dark place you think you've been buried, but you've actually been planted."

-Christine Caine

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p.s.-there's a curse word in here but nothing else that's bad

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Dark patches of farmland spread out beneath them like quiltwork, stitched together by the occasional small town or city. Niall, allowing himself to look out the aeroplane window, was getting more nervous by the minute and was beginning to wonder if this wasn't such a good idea in the first place.

He felt his stomach turn over, and with that, he pulled down the blind over the window. Zayn, bless him, saw the nervous look on Niall's pale face and reached across the boys to grip his hand tightly, offering him a small, reassuring 'Hey, baby'.

Niall didn't even try to smile; he only sent Zayn a fleeting, anxious look, before turning to lean his chin in his hand, curling his fingers into a fist so he wouldn't be tempted to bite his nails.

The seatbelt light then flashed on again, and the captain came on over the intercom as the small countryside below them merged into city and got bigger. "Flight 315 from London to Dublin Airport, this is your captain speaking. The skies are clear and you should expect some very minor turbulence as we land, but nothing to be afraid of. We will be landing in thirty minutes..." He rambled on and on with information and procedures, but Niall couldn't be bothered to listen. He had bigger things on his mind, like the fact that in two and a half hours he would be at the place he would have never thought he'd go back to and he would be seeing the person he swore never to see again.

"Baby?" Zayn looked at him tenderly, yet there was a hint of wariness in his doe eyes. The plane was no longer moving, rather it was on the landing strip. They must have made it when Niall was lost in thought.

Zayn quietly helped out the boys and made sure they had everything, while Niall absent-mindedly strapped Harry into his baby carrier and then slipped the straps over his shoulders. He grabbed his own backpack from under his seat and took Zayn's outstretched hand.

Slowly but surely they made it out into the terminal. Every slow, suspenseful second meant that Niall was coming closer to facing his past, no matter how much he did or did not want to. Zayn drew him into a quick but gentle, reassuring hug, kissing his forehead.

From here, they would take a rental car to where they would be staying in a hotel in Niall's hometown. As they collected their luggage from the claim Niall felt almost physically sick. He had to stop for a moment and take a few deep breaths before he worked himself up into an attack. Zayn noticed this and gently approached Niall, reaching out his hand to reel Niall in by the shoulder. Zayn softly rubbed his back and let his husband tuck his face into his neck, keeping an eye on the boys who were standing next to them. "Easy, baby," he whispered. "I'm here. I'm not gonna leave your side."

Niall tried to match up his breathing with Zayn's. Zayn kept on rubbing his back, helping ease things at least a bit. For a minute, everything in his head stopped spinning.

Zayn gripped both of Niall's hands in his own, and tilted his head to look Niall in the eye. "We've got this, baby. Me and you, remember?" Something twinkled in his eye and Niall nodded, slowly but surely.

After everything had been collected, Zayn took the boys to the restroom, so they wouldn't be complaining that they had to wee the whole way to Mullingar. 'The less stress for Niall right now', Zayn thought, 'the better.'

It was while Zayn was gone with the boys, though, that his anxious feelings began to set in again. He needed to distract himself, do something to get his mind off things. But there were a lot of people in this small airport, and many of them moved in large groups that made Niall feel even more nervous. The walls seemed like they were closing in on him, and the people were becoming blurs, they were moving so fast. Niall felt his claustrophobia setting in, and for a minute he pressed his hand to his forehead in despair.