Harry walked through the doors of the fancy lawyer’s office. He had been called in and during an interview, something about an emergent issue. He wasn't sure what it was all about and he really just wanted to get through it because he was supposed to hang out with the other lads at a footy game.

There was a woman bustling around a desk and Harry cleared his throat, but she wouldn't look at him; not proper anyway. She just kind of looked past him with sad eyes and when she was finished with whatever it was she was doing she left without saying a single word.

Harry shook his head and took one of the uncomfortable, not quite plastic not quite leather, chair in front of the desk. He briefly pondered whether someone else would accompany him in the other equally uncomfortable chair, but he didn't have the chance to dwell on it because a dodgy looking man in a very expensive suit came in and took a seat opposite Harry.

“Harry Edward Styles?” The suited man inquired picking up the case file off his desk and flipping it open.

“That’d be me,” Harry responded, his voice going deeper and hoarser than normal. He suddenly got a very bad feeling about this whole arrangement and he didn’t know why.

“There’s been an accident,” the man said bluntly looking up at Harry from the file and he watched as the color drained from the singer’s face without flinching.

“What sort of accident?” Harry forced out, but it was so sharp and brittle it didn’t sound like it had come from a person.

The complete lack of emotion from the lawyer was unsettling for Harry and on top of the already bad feeling he had gotten he was really, really worried. He knew it couldn’t have been one of the lads or anyone from his family. A lawyer wouldn’t be the one breaking the news to him. But he could sense that something terrible had happened nonetheless.

“Your friend’s with Lou Teasdale and Tom Atkin, correct?” the man asked dancing around the subject; it looked, for a split second, like he was feeling a bit sorry for the news he was about to give.

“Yes, does this got to do with them?” Harry asked licking his lips and he wiped his damp palms on his trousers.

The man in the too expensive suit straightened out his blazer and flipped through the papers like you would a flip book before looking at the boy opposite him again.

“Everything, I’m afraid. Harry, your friends were in a cab last night on their way back from dinner when the cab swerved off the road and into the water,” he paused as Harry sucked in air, any air, d***it why wasn’t there any air left in the place? “Harry, they didn’t make it. The sorry son of a b*** cab driver did, somehow he was drunk. Drunk people always survive,” he rambled.

But Harry stopped listening, really. He couldn’t have meant his Lou, not his best girl-friend in all the world. He had to be talking about someone else. Anyone else. Harry rested his buzzing head in his hands and started shaking it back and forth. He just kept shaking his head in his hands as if it would fling what the man in the suit had just said.

“You were called in here on the matter of their daughter, Lex,” the man said mispronouncing Lou and Tom’s little girl’s name.

Harry’s jaw clenched and he stopped shaking his head, but he did not look up. Not right away anyway. “Her name is Lux, with a ‘u’. If you’re going to tell me that my best friend’s dead, you could at least pronounce her daughter’s name right,” Harry said his voice so icy and hard that it even surprised him.

“Her name was smudged, my apologies, Harry,” the stupid bloody law man said but he didn’t mean it. He couldn’t know what it was like to lose Lou and Tom. “But addressing the matter of Lux, you were named her God parent and so therefore you were first called in to take her.”

“I was,” Harry interrupted his mouth dropped open.

“Well, yes, on the condition that you move back in with one Ms. Louise Tomlinson and care for the child together.”

“For f**** sake. The only names you got right were Lou and Tom’s. It’s Louis Tomlinson, he has a penis and he’s in One Direction!” Harry shouted getting so riled up he stood from his seat and smashed his hands down on the lawyer’s desk.

Just then as if his ears must have been burning Louis appeared at the doorway. The lawyer noticed him and relief washed over his face. “Mr. Tomlinson, hello, have a seat. I was just catching Mr. Styles here up.”

Harry shrunk back and turned to face the same doors he had come through a half hour ago without a care in the world. He could tell by Louis’ tear stained face that he knew. That must have been why he wasn’t at the interview. They told Louis before they told Harry, but why didn’t Louis tell him instead of the s*** lawyer? None of it made sense and Harry could tell that he was about to go into shock or something.

“I’m so sorry, Harry,” Louis murmured and hugged the stiff unmoving singer. He just kept repeating it over and over like a child’s lullaby. And they stood that way for a very long time because neither could bring themselves to do anything more.

But the lawyer in the expensive suit was a very busy man and although he felt bad about what had happened he needed to make his other appointments so he pulled out the necessary forms and laid them out on the edge of the desk. “I’m very sorry and all, but I need you all to sign the Guardianship papers and a couple other forms before we can release little Lux into your care and transfer over Lou and Tom’s things to the two of you.”

Harry pulled out of Louis’ arms and nodded before falling into his seat and taking the pen that the man was extending to him. Louis took his seat watching Harry as his pen slid across the paper in the correct spots the lawyer pointed to, making sure the curly headed lad didn’t crack. And then it was Louis’ turn and Harry sort of just listened to what the lawyer was saying but he couldn’t really comprehend it all. It was just too much on him. He knew he could count on Louis to retell it to him when he was in a better state.
--
“Harry, love, what’s wrong?” Louis asked rubbing the sleep out from under his eyes. He squatted down and placed a hand on the usually strong lad’s heaving back.

Harry looked up at Louis with blood shot eyes and Louis saw a sleeping Lux sprawled out on his lap. “I didn’t mean to wake you. Lux had a bit of a tummy ache and has had me up for hours. I just got her settled down.”

“Why you cryin’ for? You could have got me up, I don’t mind,” Louis murmured rubbing circles on Harry’s back.

“I’m just so tired. I know Lux would have stopped for Lou, no matter how much she loves me; it’s just not the same. I hate that this happened,” Harry cried. His tears fell faster and his chest heaved harder.

Louis’ heart broke for about the millionth time right then and there, but this time it was more absolute. He hugged his sobbing flat mate closer to him and couldn’t help but try to kiss the tears away as quickly as they fell. Louis and Harry weren’t allowed to be close after the fans suspected that they were in a relationship, which they weren’t they were just living together again, but Louis couldn’t help it. Harry looked to small and broken and he just had to fix him.

Harry was so startled that he hiccupped due to the sudden cease of tears. The look on his face worried Harry.

“I know we’re not supposed to, but I know you need me,” Louis said in a rush, panic tingeing his tone.

Harry looked as if he were about to fight it, but he couldn’t, instead he just gave in.
--
“So what was it like keeping your relationship with Louis a secret while being in the band and raising a child together?”

Harry smiled at the question. He had been expecting it; he prepared for the answer with his publicist the whole ride to the studio. He took his time answering coz he knew it would be a long one.

“It was really tough; Louis and I had liked each other from that first meeting in the toilets. The chemistry was spot on, but of course neither of us could do anything about it once we were signed with Modest. They wouldn’t have a band with two of the members dating. So naturally they gave me the bad boy image and Louis a beard and we weren’t allowed to live with each other anymore. But then when we got guardianship of Lux it was a
requirement for us to live together again. Modest really hated that, old Lou sticking it to them right until the very end. Louis and I kept away from a romantic relationship for a while though. But one night when I had been up with a sick baby it just sort of happened. I was so broken and Louis was just there, just like he always had been. We couldn’t fake it after that.”

“And do you agree that the fallout of the band was your fault directly?”

Harry stiffened a bit. He wasn’t expecting that question. “Well, sort of, but not really. Our contract was going up the next year and we weren’t sure we wanted to sign with Modest again. I reckon we could have gone on with a different company, but at the time it just seemed to hectic of a life style. Everyone was ready to move on anyway. Niall he’s a golfer now, and Zayn just landed that contract with Vogue last year, and Liam’s started a family and bought up a footy team. We are all doing very well.”

“Do you see a comeback One Direction tour in the works? It’ll be ten years next fall.”

Harry tapped his slender fingers against the red armchair as he thought about his answer. “Well, I can’t say for sure either way, but Louis has hired a manager to take over for the season and I don’t have a tour planned.”

“Is there anything else you want to say before we go?”

“Yes, I want to say, Happy Birthday Lux! I hope you like the flowers I sent to your school. Sorry we couldn’t spend the day together like we planned. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Notes

Gah I'm sorry. THis ripped my feels to pieces. Absolute shreds.