"Thank you for coming out tonight! You've been a wonderful audience and we love you all!" Niall shouted into his microphone before jumping through the opening in the stage floor.
Unfortunately for me, I had to keep playing for an infinite amount of time so the concert could end with a "flourish".
Make it a garnish and put it on cake. Maybe then I'd like it.
After we instrumentalists were done with our "flourish" (aka: excessive instrumentaling), I went backstage to find my phone blowing up with text messages. I had fourteen missed calls and 42 texts. And counting.
I picked up the damned communication device and called Korin back.
"Melody!" Korin sobbed into the phone when she answered.
"Gee, Korin. What's with all the messages and calls? Who died?" I joked.
There was silence on the other end of the line, and I was about to say something, but Korin started sobbing.
"Korin?!" I said, turning dead serious (pun not intended). I felt the blood drain from my face, and I braced myself for the worst.

Harry's POV

I stepped out of the dressing room and stood against the wall to wait for the other lads to make an appearance. I was directly across from Melody, who was smiling and talking on the phone. She was looking at the table in front of her and playing with the hem of her skirt. The corners of my mouth turned up a bit as I watched her.
"Gee, Korin. What's with all the messages and calls? Who died?" she said in a joking manner.
I noticed that her face was still red from being onstage. Somehow, the instrumentalists always looked warmer after a concert.
I saw the smile slowly slip off her face. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. "Korin?!" she said in a panicked tone. Her face drained of all color. Literally. One minute her face was as red as a fire truck and the next she was the color of salt. Now I'm officially confused.
The smile on my face drooped as I watched her listen intently to the person on the other end of the line.
"Hey, mate. Wha--" I slapped my hand over Liam's mouth without taking my eyes off Melody.
"Korin, I can't understand you," she said, her voice going up an octave. "What's wrong?!"
Will.
Her dead brother's name flashed through my head, and I suddenly understood her panic.
"Who's in the hospital?" She stood up and started pacing. She stumbled over her feet, which were stuffed in three inch heels. She regained her balance and stood on one foot as she took off one of the shoes. She then proceeded to chuck the medieval torture device through an open door and repeated the process with the other shoe.
I couldn't help it. I started to panic.
She looked up at the ceiling and I saw a look of relief on her face. She pressed her back against the wall and slid down it until she was sitting on the floor.
I released a breath that I didn't even know I was holding. I let go of Liam's face and watched as Melody hung up.
She buried her face in her hands, then looked up again.
I looked to my left, but Liam had disappeared.
Way to be supportive, Liam.
I walked over and sat down next to her. "Everything alright?" I asked tediously.
A tear ran down her face and she wiped it away. She shrugged.
I stared at the side of Melody's face, trying to think of what to say next.
"Have you ever felt horrible about being relieved?" Melody asked quietly, still staring at the ceiling. She looked over at me, and I saw that her eyes were filled with tears. "Like, you can't help but think to yourself, 'Thank God', even though it's a horrible thing to think in that situation?"
I didn't answer.
She looked straight ahead at the wall on the other side of the room. "Tell Caroline that I'm done wearing heels, okay?"
She stood up and walked into the room she threw the heels in and closed the door behind her.
I looked down at the floor where she had previously been sitting.
She left her phone here.

Melody's POV

I grabbed my five-subject notebook and started writing before I even sat down.
Why? I thought.
Jamie had always seemed so happy. I always assumed that she felt like she actually fit in. I always assumed that she felt like the last piece of a puzzle that made the entire picture visible.
I always assumed I was the puzzle piece in the wrong box.
She felt that way, too.
I just never noticed.

Harry's POV

Melody was the last one in the car. I could tell her mind was elsewhere, although I didn't know what she was so focused on.
We were flying back to Fargo so she could see her family before we left the States. And so she could get her passport, which had been mailed to her mother.
That could probably be useful. I mean, it's only across the pond.
The entire ride to the airport she was silent, and the only time she spoke was when we got to the airport and went through security. She had forgotten to take her phone out of her pocket and the security guy told her to take out whatever was setting off the metal detector.
AFTER. She had put her hand in her pocket to take it out.
"Well excuse you, mister. If you're going to tell me what to do AS I'M DOING IT, then you're probably blind and I would like to speak with your supervisor about your job," she had snapped at him. She then proceeded to grab her basket of metal objects and take them over to the metal detector next to ours.
On the plane, she read a book she had bought the day before specifically for the plane ride back to North Dakota. She finished it in an hour, then pulled out a five-subject notebook and started writing in it. She hummed as she wrote, and I knew it was a tune in her head, because even though she was wearing headphones, she wasn't listening to music.
When she put her notebook away, she pulled an orange folder out of her carry-on backpack and took a sheet of paper out of it.
Studying. Spanish, by the looks of it. I thought about attempting to say something in Spanish, but I would probably mess it up and say something stupid like "I have a watermelon growing out of my bellybutton", or "Deodorant smells like armpit". Then Niall would laugh and tell me what I said, then never let me forget it.
Ever.
After she put her folder away, I don't know how she occupied herself. She didn't fall asleep, nor did she pull anything else out of her backpack. For three hours, she stared out the window of the airplane, headphones on and nothing to listen to.
When the plane began it's descent into the winter wonderland of Fargo, North Dakota, she started humming a tune I didn't recognize, but it wasn't the same one from a few hours ago.
Niall started humming along with her. Apparently, he knew the song, too.
"I wish the couple in the corner would just... get a room. Seems like everyone around me's on their... honeymoon. I'd like to take a pin to a heart-shaped balloon, everybody's got somebody but me," Melody sang quietly.
Both Niall and Melody shut up for a moment, then Niall started singing. "I don't know how I landed on this... movie set. It's like a casting call for Romeo and Juliet. I never would have noticed if we'd never met, but everybody's got somebody but me."
After that, neither of them sang. But a little girl on the other side of the aisle started singing, too. "And I miss youuuuuuuu. Without you I just don't fit in. I know we're throooooooough, but I'm wishing we could try it again."
Melody leaned forward to see the little girl, and she smiled. "Not bad, pipsqueak," she said. "Know any more?"
The little girl nodded.
"I'll sing it if you sing it," Melody offered.
The little girl grinned and started singing. Melody and Niall joined in.

"I hear love songs laying on the... radio
People slow dancing everywhere I go.
I'm a good slow-dancer but you'd never know
'cause everybody's got somebody but me.
(Yeah they do)
Everybody's
Got somebody.
....
And I miss youuuuuuuuu
Without you I just don't fit in
I know we're throooooooough
But I'm wishing we could try it again."

The little girl stopped singing, and so did Melody, which left Niall singing on his own. Of course, he didn't care. He was jamming out.

"Sittin' here lonely at a table for two
Watching lovers bein' lovers in the...
corner booth.
Seems like even Cupid don't know...
what to do
But everybody's got somebody but me.
Yeah, I don't know if I'll ever find another youuuuuuu
... but everybody's... got somebody....
but me."

The other people on the plane applauded as we landed, then we were pretty much ignored from then on. Melody walked with the little girl until we had to part ways to pee.
"Keep singin', pipsqueak," I heard Melody say. "You're gonna be famous someday."

---

ONE HOUR LATER

Melody and I were sitting on the floor against a wall, waiting for the others to finish eating. Melody's head was resting on my shoulder, and I had my arm around hers.
"Yes," I said.
Melody looked up at me. "What?"
"You asked if I ever felt horrible for being relieved. Yes," I explained.
She kept looking at me. "Go on," she said.
I sighed and looked at the automatic doors. "A few years ago, there was a car accident not far from where I lived in Holmes Chapel. Gemma was walking home from a friend's house, and she was supposed to be home an hour before she got there," I said. "When she walked through the door, I was so relieved that she hadn't been hurt. Even on the news that night, when they talked about it, I thought, 'Thank God Gemma wasn't hurt', even though a father died in that crash. He was bringing his two sons home from school and daycare." I looked down at Melody again. "They were in the car. They saw him die, and all I could think is how relieved I was that Gemma was home."
Melody looked at the floor. "One of my classmates took three bottles of sleeping pills."
I was taken aback by how smoothly she said it. She looked up at me again, with tears in her eyes. "When I was on the phone with Korin, I expected the worst. I thought that my mom or my dad had died, or Heather or Ella. I was so afraid that I was going to lose someone else, and I can't do that." She played with her shoelaces. "I don't know what I'd do if one of them died. So when Korin told me that Jamie attempted suicide, I could've laughed. I just felt so relieved that I didn't lose a sister, too."
I was silent for a moment, and when I looked back at Melody, her gaze was fixed on me. "What?" I asked, wiping my cheek. "Do I have pudding on my face or something?"
"No."
"Then what is it?"
"You're just... you're so expressive. And I'm not." She shrugged and looked at the floor again.
I tightened my arm around her shoulders and lifted her chin with one finger. "You're you, and that's that. You don't need to be expressive, because you won't think twice about telling people what you think. All others be damned."
She smiled slightly. "Not in school." The small smile slipped away again. "I'm glad to be out of there."
We sat in silence for a few minutes.
"Thank you."
I looked at her, surprised. "For what?"
"Everything, I guess." The corners of her mouth twitched up. "You showed me that I can be somebody."
"And you showed me how to stand up to a security worker at a metal detector," I said, chuckling. When I looked back at Melody, she was looking at me again. Studying my expressions again, I guess.
"You taught me how to live again."
I studied her face, looking for any clues as to what that meant.
But somehow, I just knew.
I leaned closer so that my nose was just centimeters from hers.
"Then I must be doing something right," I said, then closed the gap between our lips and kissed her.

Notes

Here's an extra-long chapter for you peasants.
By the way, I'm apparently supposed to take over the world with a fellow brony of mine. Just thought I should let you know.
ANYWAY, I had a LOT of fun writing this chapter. It took me five hours, and it is now past four in the morning, so y'all had better be grateful little peasants today.
Especially since I didn't get to 23 votes.
Okay, so I have a new song written that I was gonna use in this chapter, but I'll use it in the next chapter because this one got REALLY long and I would've had to write more to get it to that point anyway, so I just left it off there instead. The airport scene just kinda flew out. No pun intended.
WHERE DO THESE KEEP COMING FROM?!
I was originally gonna completely skip the plane ride and that shit and just get to the song part, but I got sidetracked by describing the ways Melody kept herself occupied on the plane and then the little girl decided to make an appearance in my head so she had to go in there and then I decided that Mel and Harry were gonna talk. And this wonderful work of art came out of it.

You're welcome.

So I'd better be getting some nice comments [because I stayed up REALLY late and went against my computer restrictions (can't be using the computer after eleven)].

So y'all had better be grateful little bitches.

Sorry if that offended you. I just REALLY wanted to say that.