When the stars align

Chapter twenty two

Harry's POV:

Liam wakes us up early the next morning.
"Try and be quiet when you get ready," he whispers to both Zayn and I, "it's the first time Skyler has actually slept in, I assume she's exhausted."

I nod in response and Zayn goes back to sleep.
"Zayn!" Liam hisses, "we need to be at the interview in an hour!"
Zayn groans in response and Liam only leaves the room once he is entirely sure that he is completely awake.

"I'm gonna go check with Paul what the plan for today is," he says, leaving our suite.
He opens the door and Paul is already standing there, about to knock.

"Mornin!" He says loudly before Liam hushes him.
Once he's in the lounge we can talk freely and I immediately notice there's something on Paul's mind.

"What's going on Paul?" I ask, sounding much less subtle than I plan.
"They've found Jerry," he says, sitting down on the sofa.

"Well that's great, isn't it?" Niall, who has just walked in, rubbing his wet hair with a towel, says.
Paul nods, "they want her to testify," he says slowly.
"Oh." Niall says.

All of us are silent, we're all thinking the same thing, if she can barely deal with the occasional reminder of her step father, how will she be able to face testifying against him in court, having to repeat all the pain he put her through while he is standing right there in the very same room?

"What did you tell them?" I ask.
"I told them I'll talk to her," Paul says, "to be honest I've wanted to talk to her about this anyways, she needs to be able to talk to someone about her experiences." He looks thoughtful, "but.." he says after a moment, "it is still very fresh, maybe it's too soon."

"What is going to happen to Jerry in the meantime?" Liam asks.
"He's being kept under strict supervision," Paul says, "he cannot leave his neighborhood. But I won't be relaxed until the guy is behind bars."

"Has he admitted to anything?" I ask.
Paul nods, "not much, but since Skyler has barely told us anything, there's not much they can really go with. Although he admitted to threatening her because when they questioned him about Dylan's whereabouts, he confessed to never actually knowing where he was, he only used it to scare Skyler."

"Poor thing," Niall says.
Paul nods, "I expect you'll be thinking that phrase a lot more once she starts talking about her experiences, as far as I've seen her life must have been a living hellhole."

Louis walks in and Zayn a moment later so Paul has to repeat everything he's told us.

"So what's going to happen now?" Louis asks.
"Well look, as much as I want to see that monster where he belongs, Skyler comes first and I don't want to push her in any way, nor do I want her to feel as though she is being made to do something." Paul says, "so I'm going to explain to her what the court wants from her, see how she feels about it and then come up with a plan that she feels comfortable with."

"Like?" I ask.
"I don't know exactly," Paul says, "but we'll figure it out, maybe we'll encourage her to start writing down some of her experiences, or maybe she'll agree to get a therapist. In my opinion though, it's all too soon. I think we should all just encourage her to start opening up a little to all of us, I think she'll be much more at ease with talking to one of you boys than a stranger."

"What about court?" Louis asks.
"Well of course they want her to testify as soon as possible and they want her to do it personally in court. But they cannot force her and if she decides that she wants to wait a bit, or have someone testify instead of her, and she'll write instead of actually speak... Whatever it is, they'll have to go with it."