plaid shirt days & nights (when you made me your own) // niall horan au

part iii

"I-I'm so sorry I was in a rush and wasn't looking," is what he's saying as he scrambles to his feet. He's looking at her with wide eyes as he offers her a hand, and her mind is still stuck on two minutes ago to comprehend the flash that flickers in his bright blue eyes. "I didn't crush you, did I?" he mumbles as he brushes away the bits of grass on the sleeves of her jumper, and Zoe almost wants to punch a wall because this is her Niall, all thoughtful and bright and sweet, and she's been spending the last five years of her life trying to convince herself that he's too good for her.

Her lips part to say something but no words come out. She wants to tell him how much she loves him, how she never stopped and maybe never will. She wants to let him know that he means the world to her and if she lets go of him again then she might just fall apart. She wants to tell him that she needs him but doesn't know how.

"Is everything okay?" he asks quietly after the silence stretches miles between them, and Zoe doesn't know if she wants to cry or scream. She doesn't do either though. Instead, she ends up walking towards him until they're standing so close that she can feel the heat of his body radiating towards her from beneath his sweater. He hasn't zipped it up despite the fact that the chill of the morning requires him to, but she uses it to her advantage, slipping her arms around his middle and into the sweater to leach onto his warmth as she tucks her head into the crook of his neck. "Zo," he breathes, freezing up at the contact, arms placed on her shoulder in such a way that it's almost like he's ready to push her away.

"No," she mumbles out in a rush into the warmth of his skin, presses her forehead to his collarbones as if that'll convince him otherwise. "Please? I just—" she sighs, unable to find the words to properly articulate what she feels, so she just tightens her arms around him and hopes for the best.

She nearly lets out a relieved laugh when he returns her embrace. His arms are strong yet inviting and warm, and she smiles at the way his shoulders relax when she tucks her nose into the curve of his neck. And the thing is, being here, being all wrapped up in him, it feels right. It's where she belongs.

"Everything alright?" he whispers into her hair, and the moment is so soft and tender that all she can really do is close her eyes and listen to the rhythmic beats of his heart as she nods against his chest. She's about to say something, anything, but then Maura's voice comes from somewhere inside the house as she calls for Niall and he snaps away from her. There's a flash in his eyes that breaks Zoe's heart, because it says something along the lines of regret, like their moment of tenderness was a mistake to him, when to her it was everything she wanted.

It's then that she notices the duffel bags laying near his feet. "Where are you going?" is what comes out of her mouth in response, and she almost wishes that she thought before she asked the question, because the flush that rises in Niall's cheeks tells her that she doesn't want to know the answer.

"Uh." He looks nervous, eyes trained downwards as if there's something interesting happening with his feet. Zoe feels like she knows what he's about to say and she desperately doesn't want him to say it. Yet she can't find words of her own to stop him. "Home," he says, and as soon as the word leaves his lips, he looks up at her, eyes flashing as if he's challenging her to say something against it.

Home, Zoe thinks bitterly. It's funny how the word somehow means two different things to them right now. Home for Niall means going back to his life outside of their hometown, but home for Zoe was the feeling she got when she was all wrapped up in Niall's arms. Home for Zoe is Niall.

"Niall," comes Maura's voice from the doorway, and Zoe tries, and fails, to school her features into a less hurt expression. "Can you please get these to Jaya? Tell her that I send my thanks for the lovely snacks she sent and that she must visit one day—oh! Zoe, love, I didn't know you were standing out here." Maura arrives at the doorway with a large bag filled with Tupperware, and Zoe's too busy trying to swallow down the lump in her throat at the mention of this Jaya again to return Maura's smile. "Love," she says, ignoring the way Zoe probably looks like a deer caught in headlights as she scurries down the step with her bare feet to place the bag in her hands. "Can you please help Niall get this to his car? There's something else I need to grab from the house."