Hello all. So you might have noticed it has been a while since I updated, and that's because I couldn't decide which ending I wanted to go with. My friend came up with the perfect idea to write both and go with whichever one I liked more, but honestly, I think they're both appealing for different reasons and for different people. So, here's both.
If you want a SAD ENDING, proceed with this chapter. If you want a HAPPY ENDING, skip this one and go to the next chapter. Or you can read both, it's up to you.
Love you all.
_-_-_
Harry sees him go down, and screams.
He attempts to run out to the field, but Louis throws an arm out.
"You'll get killed if you run out there!" He yells, but Harry is already trying to push past his arms. "Wait!"
Harry doesn't listen, throwing Louis's arms off himself and sprinting past him. He trips over tree roots and he can feel his musket banging against his back. He never even took it out to prepare for a fight. This entire time, he's had his eyes on Niall.
On Niall, who fights like he's been doing it for years.
On Niall, who goes through the motions like it's second nature.
On Niall, who downed at least ten men all by himself.
On Niall, who charged into battle as if it's where he belongs.
On Niall, who was hit by a bullet in the chest.
On Niall, who is on the ground.
On Niall.
Another pair of arms encircles Harry's waist, holding him back from getting to Niall, on the ground.
Harry yells out swears and tries to push away, but whoever is holding him is too strong. Harry keeps fighting.
He can see as Liam rushes out onto the field and kneels next to Niall, safely behind a line of soldiers who are protecting him without even realizing.
How did a bullet get through? How did it hit Niall? He was still far enough away from the front lines that he should've been fine.
But Niall got far. There's men further back than him that were hit. Some never made it out of the trees.
Niall is a talented fighter.
Whoever hit him was just a lucky shot.
This doesn't stop Harry from getting angry, from cursing, from screaming, from trying to fight out of the arms that are holding him back. The person holding him has pulled him behind a tree, and though they're protected, Harry doesn't want to be.
He wants to be on the field.
He wants to put a bullet in the skull of whoever shot Niall.
He wants to be next to Niall.
Looking into his eyes, feeling his pulse, touching his skin.
But he's being restrained.
Is this what it feels like when people wake up to night terrors and can't move their body?
Is this what it feels like to be mummified while still alive?
He can't hear anything.
He can't smell anything.
He can't feel the touch of the man holding him, or the rough bark of the tree ripping at his clothing.
All he can do is see.
See as Liam leans down next to Niall and checks his pulse, his breathing. Sees as Liam covers over the wound in his chest with gauze and cotton and strips of cloth. Sees as Liam leans down again next to Niall's mouth, his ear nearly pressed to his skin.
Sees as Liam pulls back and starts pressing down on Niall's chest, rhythmic, methodically movements.
Sees as Liam leans over his mouth and presses his lips to Niall's, breathing air into his lungs.
Sees as he repeats the process over and over, multiple times, as gunshots still go off around them. A few shots come way too close to them for Harry to be comfortable with.
Liam continues pressing down on Niall's chest, and Harry can see from afar as Niall's chest lurches and suddenly he's throwing up all over himself and the grass.
Harry breathes a sigh of relief as Liam turns Niall onto his side, facing toward him and using his fingers to wipe at Niall's mouth. He's saved.
Or at least he thinks.
His stomach drops again when Liam turns him onto his back again and begins pressing on his chest and breathing into his mouth once again.
"Why is he still going?" Harry yells out.
Louis shakes his head and let's it fall back against the tree, "Throwing up isn't a sign of life."
"How the fuck do you know that?"
Louis just shakes his head and looks back at the two on the field.
More and more men are falling around them, but Harry only has eyes for the two.
He doesn't care about the fight anymore. He doesn't care about the end of this war. He doesn't care about all the people falling on either side.
He doesn't care.
He should, but he doesn't.
He watches as Liam leans back, stretching his arms out in front of him and shaking his hands out. A man comes up to his side and touches his shoulder, and Harry can only watch as Liam stands up and walks to another person lying on the ground, seemingly choking.
He leaves Niall on the field where he fell.
Harry struggles in the arms of the man holding him.
Louis looks on with a pensive expression as Liam moves from victim to victim, leaving Niall in the same spot.
The grass has run red with blood around him.
_-_-_
The battle ended several hours later, a victory on their side. Harry can't even celebrate with everyone else around him. They're all jumping for joy, drinking together and giving increasingly drunken confessions.
Harry watches from afar. No one attempts to come up to him or invite him to the festivities.
He finds it hard to believe none of these other men lost someone they cared about or even loved in that same field, so he can't understand why they're so overjoyed. The war is over, they're going home. But What does it matter when not everyone is able to make it out alive?
What is even the point of war? It just leads to more loss, more suffering, more sadness, and simply puts a hold on the fighting for the foreseeable future.
He never should've joined this fight. It was the stupidest and most reckless decision he's ever made.
He didn't know what he was fighting for. Honestly, he never really was for any reason until the very end. And that reason was lost.
Niall was carried off the battlefield like many of the other soldiers were that they were able to identify. Some were left behind.
No one claimed them.
Harry wonders what would've happened to Niall had he been on the other side. Would Louis have claimed them?
Even with a mass of bodies only a few meters away, the men don't deter from their singing and dancing and drunken rambles.
It's over. They get to go home. Some of them never thought the day would come. Some of them never thought they'd see the end.
Most of them never did.
Harry sighs and stands up, walking toward the men.
"Harry!" He hears someone call, and turns around to see Louis coming from the corpses hidden in the trees. He stops and let's Louis catch up. "Hey. Uh. No one else is over there. If you wanted to. Ya know. Say goodbye."
"I'm not saying goodbye." Louis tilts his head and Harry shakes his head. "I'm bringing him back home. I"ll say goodbye to him there."
Even though he knows Niall is gone, he doesn't want to believe it until he has to. He can pretend, for the time being, this Niall is simply sleeping, regaining his energy from the fighting.
Until he places him in the ground and covers him with dirt, Niall is still alive. At least in Harry's head.
"Well, okay then. Anyways, I found this." Louis holds out his hand, where a picture and a few other items are placed.
Harry stares at them for a moment before glaring up at Louis, "He's barely even cold yet and you're already pilfering through his pockets?"
Louis recoils, "He told me to give this to you if he... didn't make it. So take it."
Harry doesn't want to think about such a conversation. He doesn't want to believe Niall expected to die in that battle.
"Before you jump to conclusions, he said if he didn't make it. He didn't go out there trying to die. But he also knew that if he did, you would never take anything from his body."
"Because it's his."
Louis sighs, "I know, but now it's yours. He wanted you to have it." Louis reaches out and lifts up Harry's hand, forcing his fingers apart and placing the items in the palm.
Harry stares at them. Louis walks away without saying anything else.
He wants to clench his fingers around the items, but he can't bring himself to. He doesn't have the energy to.
The photograph is folded, crumpled, and nearly falling apart. He doesn't have to open it to know who's in the picture.
There's also a broken watch and a knife. Harry doesn't know where Niall got them from and what their importance is, but they must mean something.
He pockets all three items without looking at them.
_-_-_
Harry and the rest of the soldiers are discharged a few days later. The train ride down to Virginia is full of sullen and forlorn faces, and Harry assumes most of the men he's riding with were fighting on the opposite side.
Their side lost. Harry's side won.
But yet, Harry feels more comfortable in the train full of men he probably wouldn't have hesitated from shooting mere months ago. They all look out of place. Every one of them is returning with bad news.
Harry shuffles his feet.
When he gets off on his stop, only a few men follow. A few carriages wait outside the station, and Harry claims one. He mumbles the town name to the man and sits back as they begin on their way. The ride is over an hour long and Harry watches out the window as the fields go on and on for miles. There seems to be no end to them.
Eventually they pull up into a small town in between several farms. There aren't many buildings and people seem few and far between but Harry eventually finds a woman and asks her to point him toward the Horan family farm. The woman looks down at his clothes, the bag on his back, his shoes that are falling apart. She looks back up at him with a sad smile, and motions back toward the road and tells him it should be the third farm on the left. Harry thanks her and begins walking.
Each plot of farm land stretches on for acres and acres of roaming cattle and freshly planted fields. Three farms down still takes nearly an hour for Harry to reach, and he nearly misses it with how deep the small house is tucked into the field. The walk up the drive is still long enough to make him want to stop at the edge and take a nap, and he damn near would have if he hadn't spent the last few years marching along much rougher terrain.
When he finally comes to a stop in front of the porch, he reaches into his pocket and rubs the three items Louis gave him. Though it has only been a few days, he's rubbed the back of the photograph smooth. It's the one item he hasn't removed from his clothes or left at a distance from his body at all. The watch and the knife have traveled, the photograph stays in one place. He still can't bring himself to look at it. It's not his. He's not supposed to have it.
But he does.
He takes a step onto the porch, the wood creaking beneath his feet. No one has come out to greet him yet, and perhaps, if luck were on his side, no one is home and he doesn't have to tell them the news he's hardly been able to fathom himself.
But as the last few days have proven, luck isn't on his side.
There's a sudden commotion from inside the house, and Harry looks up to see a man, probably middle aged, wielding a rifle much like the ones they were issued, only this one seems more akin to hunting game than killing men. Regardless, Harry finds himself staring down the barrel of the rifle, a position he luckily never found himself in previously. Alas, who would've thought being honourably discharged and yet he still finds himself in situations of peril.
"State your business, boy," the man says, his voice gruff but with a slight Irish tinge beneath. Harry's heart stutters.
"Mr. Horan?" Harry tries first, but it doesn't seem to have much sway on the man. "Sir, my name is Harry Styles," he pauses, nearly stating his rank, but now that the battles are over and a peace agreement has been reached, will his titles still serve a purpose? "I come bearing news of your nephew, Niall Horan."
At that moment, Harry reaches back into his pocket and pulls out the photograph, watch, and knife. He holds them out to the man, hoping he would drop his aim on Harry's head, but the man does not waver.
Harry retreats, "Sir, Niall was killed at the most recent battle, fighting alongside the north to end this war for good. His body should arrive within a few days, or would you rather he be sent back to Ireland?" He assumes keeping a straightforward and distant approach will suffice, since this man doesn't seem to be interested in making friends.
"Send him back here. Go now."
"Sir," Harry tries, but the man straightens his aim again.
"You're not getting the boy, not over my dead body. Leave."
Harry furrows his brows, and then remembers what Niall told him about why he enlisted in the first place. "I'm not here for Elliot, sir—"
"Leave!" The man yells, taking a step forward; Harry can see his finger stuttering on the trigger. Harry trips back over his heels and lands on the dusty walkway. The man is still pointing the gun straight at Harry's head.
Harry raises both his hands above his head, trying to signal that he means no harm. "I fought alongside Niall, sir. Before he died, he made me promise him that I'd come back here and make sure Elliot is safe, even if he... wasn't able to come back himself. Please, you don't have to let me see him, but just let him know that Niall really loved him and only wanted him to be safe."
The man's aim finally wavers, dipping slightly, yet his grip is still strong, the barrel of the gun tilting only down to Harry's chest.
"I'll tell him. Now please leave." His voice is shaking.
Harry considers pleading his case, demanding to meet Elliot, to be let into the last place Niall considered home. But he recognizes the signs of a person falling into grief, as they realize someone they knew and loved is no more.
Harry is still in denial.
"I'm so sorry for your loss, Mr. Horan. Here." With an arm still raised, he reaches his other arm back into his pocket and pulls out the three items. "Niall kept these close at all times, even during battle. This is all that was left on him after they cleaned and changed him. I assume you would like to have it."
He doesn't step forward, he just lays the items on the bottom step of the porch and then steps back, putting both arms above his head again.
The man stares at the items on the porch, then looks back up at Harry. With his gun still raised, he steps down and picks up each item, one by one. When he picks up the picture, he has to shake it until it falls open, revealing the hand-drawn image of three calm faces.
Harry's never actually really looked at the image since Louis gave it to him a few days ago. He remembers Niall would often take it from his pocket and study the features of his family's faces, as if he's hoping to never forget them.
"I remember when we posed for this picture. Elliot wouldn't stop squirming the whole time they were drawing." The man laughs slightly, looking back up at Harry. "You said you fought with him?"
Harry blinks a few times, eyes glazed over. "Yes, sir. He fought valiantly until the very end. I wish I could've... brought happier news back for you."
The man sighs, "You're alright, son. Thank you for bringing the news back. Since Niall left, we haven't been able to go into town much. People are always trying to take my boy away. Forgive me for being standoffish. I'm John. Don't know if the lad ever told you."
Harry recalls Niall did mention his uncle's name a few times. "He did, sir."
"John. You can come in, but if you have any weapons, leave them out here."
Harry makes a show of patting down his pockets, turning in a circle to show he doesn't have anything to harm them. Anything of value. Only a stained shirt and too short pants he shucked off months ago in favor of a uniform and a gun.
John nods once Harry has made a fun revolution, motioning him into the house with his head. He's still holding the rifle, but once Harry is inside, he places it on a rack next to the door. John takes the lead ahead of Harry, leading him to a room near the back of the small ranch. The door is closed and Harry can hear soft humming from inside. John sidles up to the door, knocking quietly, and then cracking it open.
Harry's view is blocked as John takes a step inside, but a woman's voice calls out, "I just got her asleep. If she wakes up you'll never hear the end of it. From me and her."
"Sorry, lovely. We have a visitor." John finally steps past the threshold, revealing Harry, still standing awkwardly in the hallway.
Inside the room a woman, skin dark just as in the photo, swaddling a mess of blankets in her arms.
"State your business, boy," she demands, still sitting, though her voice takes on a demeanor of strength and the willingness to fight.
"I bring no trouble, ma'am. My name is Harry, I fought with Niall." Harry recites, still unsure if he should enter the room. Perhaps he'd breach upon her territory, despite John's invite into the house.
The woman looks up at John, then down at the cocoon in her arms. John whispers, "Where's El?"
"Out somewhere. I told him to not wander off but he never damn listens."
"I'll go look for him." John offers, and then steps past Harry, still in the hallway, and out the back door. Harry looks back at the woman in the chair.
"Well come in, lost soldier. Keep the door open, it's too hot in here."
Harry finally steps past the threshold, his eyes finally adjusting on the small child bundled in the blankets. He figured, seeing the swaddle, recognized the signs of a mother having just finished feeding, felt the tension of a woman protecting her child from the strange man at the door.
"This is Clarisa."
Niall never mentioned having two cousins, especially a little girl.
_-_-_
Two months after Niall left, Mary began assuming she was pregnant. She wished she knew the location of Niall at that point so she could write him a letter to share the news, but even if she did, it seemed unlikely that they would be able to get it into the mail and sent to him, anyways. The people of the town have grown more hostile towards them, and especially as she started showing her pregnancy more and more, John took to staking out at the front of the house with a loaded gun ready just in case anyone tried to come by and attack them.
Six months later, she gave birth to beautiful baby Clarisa, daughter of Mary and John, half-sister of Elliot, and Harry has to hold back his tears as he remembers that Niall will never be able to meet his new cousin, nor will be ever be able to see Elliot and talk to him about his new life as a big brother.
Harry quietly wishes Mary and John congratulations, but they can all feel the somber tension in the room. Harry is still a stranger, a man who is out of place in this house.
Despite this, he still asks, "Would you allow me to see Elliot? I promised Niall I would check on him, and now I guess I'll be the one to... share the news."
John looks over at Mary, who was still slightly rocking her baby. Mary shrugs, "I guess so. Where did you find him?"
"In the barn, as usual. I'll show you the way, lad, follow me."
Harry leaves Mary and baby Clarisa in the bedroom, leaving the door open as she requested, and follows John out the back door. Once it is closed behind them, Harry looks up at the farm land, spotting the barn only a few acres away. He and Niall met as he was being forced into a barn, and he saved his life to let them escape.
"Harry, I'm not sure what Niall told you about Elliot, but as of recently he's not really fond of strangers. I'll come in with you because I doubt he'll take the news of Niall's passing very well. I do have to thank you for being willing to tell him. I don't think I'd be able to cope." John pauses, looking up at the sky. "Niall's the only one in my family I ever kept in contact with. The rest of them didn't approve of Mary or my lifestyle, but now that I'm gone, what they think of me doesn't matter."
Harry nodded along, saying, "I think Niall felt the same way. He told me he loved nothing more than coming here to see you and everyone else. I think he considered you three more of his family than anyone else back in Ireland."
John stays quiet for the rest of the walk to the barn. The front doors are slightly askew, pushed open still after John left. Elliot must've refused to come down.
They both stop outside the two doors, looking at each other. John nods slightly, a sad grimace on his face. Harry pushes one of the doors to the side, stepping inside the dank building.
Memories of being locked away all those months ago rush back to him. The layout is almost exactly the same, apart from the ropes and pulleys piled up in the corner, farming instruments lining the walls, and a second story that can only be reached through the tall support beams. Harry looks around the room for a moment, taking it in, trying to find a small boy that Niall described by memory multiple times. When he doesn't seem to show his face, Harry glances up at the second story. He can't see anything beyond the edge.
John calls out, "Come down, El. You have a visitor."
"Don't care." A sharp, slightly high-pitched voice calls back from the balcony.
"Boy," John starts, but Harry holds a hand up to stop him.
He takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly before saying, "Elliot, my name is Harry Styles. I fought alongside Niall in the war."
Suddenly, someone's head peeks over the side of the second story, glaring down at the two men on the floor. He asks, "Where is he?"
If he were wearing a hat, Harry would have felt obliged to remove it. "He fought valiantly, but his luck ran out in the last battle." Harry's voice chokes up, and he finally realizes that this is the moment Niall was hoping to avoid. Though there were several months where he felt he needed to die for the cause, in the end, all he wanted to do was get back to his family. Get back to Elliot. If he had known, meet his new cousin, baby Clarisa. "I'm sorry." Harry whispers, voice breaking off into a sob. He reaches a hand up to his face and covers his mouth. "I'm so sorry, I couldn't save him."
"Lad," Harry feels John place his hand on Harry's shoulder, and the slight Irish lilt to his voice makes Harry flinch away. "It's not your fault."
Harry only continues to cry, and he hardly notices when Elliot jumps down from the balcony and stands in front of him. He's taller than he imagined, darker, leaner, more man than boy. Niall wanted to come back to him. He wanted to see him again. He wanted to see them all again. And now he never will.
John says to Elliot quietly, "The war is over. According to this boy, Niall was on the frontlines in the final battle. He fought to save this country."
"He did, he did. He fought so hard, so hard to get back to you all." Harry looks up at the two of them - at Elliot's surprised face, the news having yet to sink in; at John, the last immediate blood relation that Niall considered his family. "He almost made it. I'm so sorry I couldn't save him."
Harry remembers seeing him fall on the field, Liam hovering over him, pumping air into his lungs and trying to give his heart a beat again, to no avail.
Niall is gone. He's not coming back. He fought in a war for almost a year, most of it spent on a side he didn't believe in, the last of it spent fighting much harder for a side he did. He gave his life, and even if he had survived, what would he have had to show for it? No paycheck, on pension, no valid discharge. Possible abandonment and betrayal charges. All he wanted was to get back to his family, to show Elliot that he made it, that it's possible to fight for what you believe in and win.
But he didn't win. The war is over, but not every battle was won, too many lives were lost, and there's still a chance people will refuse to accept anything has changed.
Were those lives lost for nothing? Was Niall's life lost for nothing? Will change ever come?
Elliot begins crying alongside Harry, and though he's still a stranger to the boy, he still steps forward to wrap his arms around Harry's middle, accepting comfort from a man he has no reason to trust. No reason to believe. No reason to take his word.
Harry appreciates the comfort nonetheless. Even as he hears John step away, outside the barn doors, closing it behind him.
Harry once again feels like he's trapped in a barn, only this time he's with a boy that has probably felt trapped his entire life, and even though changes have been promised, who knows how long it will be before anything ever comes of it. Perhaps, nothing ever does.
Maybe it feels like Niall's death solidifies that for the boy. He went away to protect him, gave his life to protect him, and maybe, possibly, one day, no one will care. The lives that were lost will be forgotten. History will continue to repeat itself.
As they cried together in the old, leaky barn, Harry is reminded of when he was shown the mercy of a man too pure for the war he was roped into. A man that will one day be lost to history. At that moment, Harry and Elliot, sobbing into each other's shoulders, vow in their heads to at least let him live on in their memories.
The man he loved. The boy he died for. The uncle that was his only family left. His new cousin that he was never able to meet. His aunt that was stronger than any woman he's ever met.
They all vow to remember him until the end of their days. He will not be lost to time, history books be damned.