The three sisters were soon assembled in Jeni's room.
"You okay?" Jas asked.
"Yeah I'm fine," snapped Jeni.
"Woah no need to be a bitch to me, I'm just asking," Jas replied.
"I'm sorry," Jeni said.
The girls spoke for a few more minutes about the pressure and stress they were feeling, before they heard one of the boys calling them downstairs for a family meeting.
"WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A GIRL MEETING! YOU CAN WAIT," screamed Alicia.
"No, right now, it's important."
"SO IS OUR MEETING."
"Don't make us come up there," the Irish one called.
Rolling their eyes at each other, the girls all filed out of the bedroom, down the hallway, down the stairs and into the living room. They flopped onto a couch and stared at the boys.
"What?"
"Niall told us that you said something interesting in your recent punishment," Zayn started.
"Yeah, and?" Jasi muttered.
"And we think we should talk about it."
"No." "No." "No."
The three female voices echoed each other.
"It's important to talk about things, girls," Liam said.
"No!" This time they were in perfect harmony.
"But-"
Jennifer jumped up, cutting Harry off.
"NO! I've already said that I don't want to talk about it, and that's that! We're not revisiting that shitty time and that's final! I'd rather just move on from it and forget about it. I don't want to talk about anything that's happened in my life. I would rather live here... I would rather learn your names... I would rather hug you... I would rather marry all of you than talk about it, okay? We're done here!"
She ran up the stairs, closely followed by her sisters.
"Wow," Louis commented. "They really don't want to talk about it."
"You think?"
"What we need to do is let them know that if they want to talk about it they can," Liam said.
"I can go," volunteered Harry.
"I wouldn't," Louis muttered.
"What was that, Tomlinson?" Harry asked jokingly.
"I said, 'You are a weirdo,'" Louis replied, speaking slowly and clearly.
"I'll kill you when I get around to it," Harry replied.
He stood up and went to the stairs. Climbing up them, he rehearsed what he was going to say.
Knocking on the door, he heard voices stop abruptly, and one call out rudely.
"What?"
Harry called back, "Look, we know you don't want to talk about that particular thing, and that's fine. But we all want you to know that if you want to talk about anything at all, you can come to us and talk. Okay?"
"Whatever. Go away."
Harry sighed and went back down the stairs.
"So we've all been spanked except for you, Jas. And I for one think it's utter bullshit," Jeni began.
"I think that if they can make rules, so can we," Lic replied.
"And if they want us to obey their rules... they should have to."
"And to be honest some of their rules are ridiculous."
Continuing their conversation, the girls soon came up with a list of things.
They went downstairs, with Jeni leading in the middle, Jas on her right, one step behind, and Alicia another step behind her, on the right.
"Hey girls," Liam said. "What can I do for you?"
They internally felt relieved that the events of the day had been forgiven, forgotten or at least put in a box.
"We need to talk to you."
"All of you."
Liam looked a little concerned. "Is it serious?"
"You could say that."
"Let's go into the study then."
Liam took them to a study, which had five chairs on either side of a huge desk.
"How big is this desk?" Alicia whispered to Jasi.
"Five metres by two metres," Liam replied. "Do you want to sit down and I'll get the boys?"
As he left the room and called for the boys, the girls sat and spoke quickly. They had a new idea that they agreed on; and they organized their notes.
"Hey girls," Harry said as the five boys filed into the study and sat across from the girls.
"Hi."
"What's up?"
"After listening to your rules, we have come up with some things of our own. We are willing to discuss them, but you can't punish us for saying what we need to say during this period of time. You need to take this as seriously as you wanted us to take your rules. Okay?"
"Sure."
"Just as you had fifteen rules, we have fifteen points of discussion. If you listen to us, we might agree to your rules and as such, your stupid punishments. You don't agree to our ideas, we won't agree to yours."
"The first two are that if we have to follow your stupid rules, then so do you; and you will get punished just as we do," Jeni started.
"We already kind of do. The rules for you and us are a bit different, due to the age difference and that, but that one is easy enough."
"The third is that we are allowed to swear."
The boys looked at each other and Louis sighed. "Look, we aren't going to agree to that, but we will compromise. We're not going to go super crazy strict, but we don't want you to swear. You can say some words, and we will probably call you up on it, but we aren't going to go mental over one ward. That said, we will get stricter because right no you're used to swearing. That good?"
"Satisfactory."
"The next two are that you have to listen to our side before you punish us, and if there is a good reason you need to accept it and not get us in trouble."
"Fair enough, if we see something that you can't do – for example if you hit someone in front of one of us – you will get punished because you did do something wrong. However you can explain and we'll get to the bottom of it."
"Number six," Jeni said, smirking up at the band, "Yes boys."
"What?"
"You said no boys, we say yes boys."
"We'll discuss this later."
"Number seven – we need a safe word or something. This is a word where no matter what, if we say it you stop or wait."
"Okay. However, you can't abuse it."
"We promise, completely."
"The word is... um," Harry thought.
"Zebra!" Alicia exclaimed.
"Okay. What's the next one?"
"Do not ask any questions about anything that happened before yesterday. Non-negotiable."
"Number nine is that you have to treat us like teenagers and not toddlers."
"As long as you act like teenagers," Louis answered. "We'll treat you like that."
"Number ten... oh yeah," Jeni said. "Screw your bedtimes, we aren't doing that."
"We'll give you a bedtime, and you'll go to your bedroom and be ready for bed. And then if you don't go to sleep we'll slowly take things away – phone, laptop, books, etc. You don't have to go to sleep, but you have to wake up when we say. That's the best we can do for you," Liam negotiated.
"Jasi keeps her iPod," Alicia and Jeni said. "Not up for discussion."
They knew what the iPod meant to her, and what it did.
"The eleventh one is about chances. We should get a few chances."
"Within reason, we can do that."
"The twelfth one is that we will tell you if we aren't comfortable with something and we want you to respect that."
"Of course we will!" All of the boys chanted.
"Thirteen, don't be super strict."
"Fourteen, we deserve privacy. Don't take doors off of hinges, don't go through bas or phones, don't invade."
"We will take whatever measures we need to, okay? We will try to trust you, but if we need, we'll look through your stuff. We'll let you know though, and we will only talk about what we need to. Don't get yourself into situations that make us believe that you are in trouble, and we can keep out of your private business."
"And finally... this is the least and most important one. We want you to..." Jeni trailed off and glanced at her sisters.
"You need to, um," Alicia said, embarrassed.
"Oh god, I'll do it then. We need you to promise that you won't return us."
"Return you?"
"To the orphanage, like used goods. It won't mean anything, we know, but it will make us feel better and make it easier to open up. Obviously it doesn't mean you can't return us, but it could just... reassure us."
After gabbling that, the girls felt a weight lift off their chests. They looked up at the boys who were staring at them.
"Okay well that's all we're just going to-"
"Sit," Harry said firmly. The power of his voice was enough to sink into the girls and make them return to their seats. He leaned forward and took one of Jasmine's hands. He saw the other boys grab the hands of the other girls.Gazing into Jas's eyes, he said, "We are never, ever, ever going to get rid of you. Whatever has happened, whatever happens in the future, we are keeping you with us. We will love you and care for you and support you, and do whatever it takes to make you know that we love you and we are all family now. We are not returning you to the orphanage. You are here to stay. We promise."
The other boys repeated, "We promise."
"Okay?" Harry asked, tears in his eyes.
"Okay," the girls all whispered. Not that they were going to admit it; but they were a little emotional as well.
Except for Jasi. She burst into tears.
"We have one more thing to say. We will let you ask questions for one hour. Half an hour with all of you and all of us, then half an hour one on one – we choose who to partner with. If you ask something we don't like, we won't answer. But you have one hour."
Hey readers! I love you so much xxx
Two things:
1 - for me to write the next chapter, I need some questions! So comment questions for the girls that the boys can ask. If your question doesn't get into the next chapter, I will include it in an interview somewhere.
2 - if somebody wants to make a cover, i would really appreciate it! If you have ideas for who can play each of the girls, tell me.
Thanks xx
FF