Hi! Thank you for reading this still, I love you all so much and I hope you love this story as well x

Again, please comment on parts you like and tell me your thoughts so I can make this story into something you'll like xx

Reminder of the situation:
- Harry collapsed and was taken to hospital where he is currently in a hospital ward on his own.
- In the last chapter, Louis sewed his mother's right eye, and she caught him doing so. Zayn saw that Louis was out of it when he picked him up for school so they went to the hospital. Louis ended up spending time with Harry.
- At the end of the last chapter, it finally hit Louis what he had done, and he concluded that he has abused his mother. He starts to cry when he realised that he is 'just like her'.

***

Harry watched in alarm as large tears poured from those pretty blue eyes of Louis'. He wondered what part of the boy's heart had cracked, and why it had done so, and how deep that crack was. For sure, Louis had cried many tears-anyone in his situation would-and it hurt to watch, so Harry looked at his lap. He saw Louis' hand out of the corner of his eye, resting on the side of the bed where he gripped the sheets. His palm was scuffed up as if he'd fallen over, and the scratches were too big for even the biggest plasters in the box to cover them.

It was then that the door opened and Zayn barged in. He appeared shocked, which, for the record, was an expression that Harry had never seen on him. He was usually oblivious, or dazed, and most of the time he was both. Zayn walked up to Louis and lifted the child's face to peer at him as if it was just an illusion that Louis was in tears.
"What happened? What did you do to him?" He asked Harry, and to Louis, he said, "Are you alright, boy?"

Harry stuttered for a few seconds, shrugging which sent a searing bolt of pain through his arm, "I-I don't know, he just started crying, I don't know-"

Zayn glanced from Harry to Louis, rubbing the boy's cheeks and pulling them and squishing them, all of which had no effect as Louis continued to sniff and whimper. "Don't cry, please. Please don't do that. You're fine." He then lifted his hand and pressed his fingers to his thumb. He began to pretend that his hand was a puppet, and made it say "Don't cry, little boy, Mr. Wiggles says you're fine."

Harry looked away, an irritated look on his face, wondering how such an incompetent person had been taking care of Louis all of this time. He didn't like Zayn, and couldn't believe how the man hadn't done something to get Louis out of his mother's care. Harry couldn't do so, he didn't know enough about Louis to understand what the outcome of separating him and his mother would be. To know was something vital, and as long as he was ignorant to it, he could do nothing besides give Louis a safe place to stay.

But Zayn knew Louis enough. He knew the outcome and still did not find a solution to the situation, despite Louis calling out to him for help. Louis always cried for help-to Zayn, to his teachers, to the ladies in the supermarket, to strangers.. He made it clear that he wanted help, knew that he needed it desperately, but adults were incapable fools, and Louis was told that 'because he was smiling, he was fine'.

That was what had made Louis believe that his mother still loved him in the first place.

It was the adults that corrupted his mind like that.

"I'll get you water and a lollipop. Would you like that?" Zayn asked, squishing Louis' flushed cheeks. "Stay here." He said, before rushing out of the room.

Harry watched the door close and click, and then he turned his face to Louis. "Is that the face you'll make when the curtain closes at the Ballet? That crying face?" He smiled and Louis looked at him. "You've had prettier moments."

Louis laughed a little and wiped his eyes with his fists. "Are you going to cry? Do you cry at your shows?"

Harry nodded, "I do. Sometimes it's joy, sometimes it's sadness. Sometimes both. I always wonder which it'll be."

Louis shuffled his chair up to Harry and put his head in the man's lap, looking up at him. Harry moved his left arm and stroked the boy's hair back. They smiled at each other, the softest smiles they'd ever shown; and the world forgot to turn.

They heard nothing but each other's breaths, saw nothing but the blue skies and green grass in each other's eyes, and Louis brought up his hand to hold Harry's as if the red strings around each other's little fingers were tugging them towards one another. They did nothing more, said nothing more, and their love-a growing tree from the very start-burst into flower.

After the while that Louis had spent stroking Harry's hand with his thumb, and Harry had spent watching him with that wonderful love, they finally spoke again. Harry asked him why exactly he had cried and said, 'I'm just like her,'.

And the little boy in Mickey Mouse plasters had opened his eyes and smiled, "No reason really. I just realised that she's real." He'd replied, "Mother's real, she'll hurt me again."

Harry watched a light in those blue eyes shiver, like a thought that spun around and around in Louis' head. There was no doubt about it that the reason for Louis' tears was the thought hidden in that trembling light, but he'd not conveyed it.
Harry wondered what a boy like Louis would hide. He had an honest heart, the kindest and most truthful, so what event could possibly have happened to make him keep it a secret?

"Come here." Harry said, and he tapped his own lips with his left hand. Louis stood up, making sure to not touch Harry's arm that was getting bluer by the minute. He moved to Harry's mouth and stopped before he reached him, for no other reason than to look at his lips and compare them to rose petals in his mind. Harry didn't hesitate, and leant in just that missing inch until the rose touched Louis' mouth. He brought his left hand to Louis' nape and pulled him forward.

Harry's tongue licked Louis' lips, then moved into his mouth and their mouths touched once more with a love that was bittersweet, and they really liked the taste.

They went on like that in the closure of the little hospital ward where no one could see nor hear them. Harry kissed Louis all over his face and on each of his plasters, and Louis turned into some sort of kitten that wanted every bit of attention and seemed to almost purr in response to it.
Finally Harry pulled back to lean his head on Louis' shoulder and sigh. He then groaned and Louis stood up. They looked at his right arm. His fingers were purple, and there was now faint bruising appearing all the way up to his shoulder.

"That's not good." Louis said, frowning. "Shall I get a nurse?" He asked.

Harry shook his head and laughed faintly. "No. Don't let it worry you." He glanced at the clock and it read a-quarter-to-four. "You should go home."

"Why?" Louis asked a little too frantically for it to not raise suspicion. Harry gulped, glanced down at his arm, and said, "I'm going to another room soon. I'll be asleep for a while. I'll come and see you at the Ballet studio and I'll look a little different. Practice well, and don't forget to stretch before and after or you'll get muscle ache."

Zayn then returned with a handful of lollipops and a plastic cup of water. He was to stressed to even glance at Harry, and ushered Louis out of the room while dabbing his own forehead with a polkadot handkerchief.

Harry smiled at Louis through the glass and half-closed blinds until the boy was gone. And when he was, Harry's smile dropped.

On his sharp face where a loving look had been waiting just a few seconds before was now a contorted look of pain. His eyes were tightly closed and his eyebrows furrowed. He threw his head back and cried out in pain. His heartbeat on the monitor rose until it began to send an alarm through the hospital ward.

A nurse came rushing in with a large needle and a glass of water. Harry panted, squirming violently, shouting out and groaning, struggling against the nurse who put a mask over his nosed mouth. After a few minutes-long, long minutes- Harry let out his final cried and fell limp onto the bed, no longer feeling any pain. The nurse brushed his hair back from his face and calmed at him with a smile. He watched her, gaze heavy, skin glistening in sweat, and she said, "I've numbed it, Mr Styles. The pain will completely go soon enough. You're doing well, Sir, just hold on. Keep breathing, in and out. You're doing well."

Harry looked at his arm one last time when the nurse took a black marker from her pocket, and vowed to himself to never look again.

*

Zayn pulled up at Louis' house, a lot calmer than he had been in the hospital after going on a rant about everything and anything where the original subject had been Louis, but had quickly derived to his personal life and his vegetable patch that was not progressing as well as he would have hoped.

Louis looked at his house, eyes wide with fear, images of Mother lurking in his mind.
In his memories, Mother crawled across the floor. Mother sat outside his door and stared ahead with a smile on her face. Mother lurked in the cupboard under the stairs where a 'tap, tap tap' was heard as she knocked her forehead repeatedly on the wall. Mother walked up and down the stairs at night, over and over until the planks were warn. Mother did adult things with men in the living room while Louis was forced to clean the floorboards right beside her. Mother smelt like drugs when she'd hug him afterwards, and Louis would smell like adult things when he'd finished cleaning up the sofa. Louis would shiver at night and sleep beneath his desk where the wind from the smashed window couldn't reach him. He would wish for a duvet or anything more than the old baby blanket he had. He would listen to Mother walk up and down the stairs, tap her head on the wall. He would sense her sitting outside his door and stare ahead with a smile on her face. And he would feel the floor shake when she crawled across it. All in his memories, and he had little room for happy ones.

"I'll come for you tomorrow." Zayn said, making Louis jump. "I promise. If anything goes wrong, call me."

"I don't have a phone." Louis said, without turning his face away from the closed curtains.

"Oh, well, I'm sure that you'll be fine. I'll be here tomorrow."

Louis paused, nodded, and got out of the car. "Goodbye." He said.

He shut the door when Zayn began to say something else, and walked up to the front door. He'd usually admire the daffodils and pansies that grew by the hedge, but he didn't this time. He just watched the house as if it'd engulf him again. There was no movement behind the curtains, no sound, and Louis waited for a long while before opening the door. He glanced one last time down the road where Niall's Granny's house was, and wished that he could go there instead. Her car was not there-the little green one that was too small for even Louis-and that didn't reassure him in the slightest. She wondered where she was, and then wondered if he could teleport himself there, and then he wondered if Harry was alright, and then he thought of Ballet, and he smiled.

His smile gave him the confidence to push open the door. The stench of dried blood and stuffiness wafted over him and he almost slammed the door shut. He walked in, stepping on the planks that he knew would not creak, and closed the door at the speed he knew would cause no sound.

To his right was where he immediately looked. In the kitchen. It didn't surprise him to see that the chair had tilted and Mother was no longer there, but he would have been as equally unsurprised to see her still there. The open fridge was the only source of light in the house, and when Louis' eyes turned to it, he noticed it to be empty. Milk was tipped over the floor, turned red from blood that was also smeared over the floor, showing evident marks of a struggle to get free from the chair. The cupboards were also open, food pushed out and tipped all over the counters, and all of the knives were missing from the cutlery cupboard which Louis had forgotten to lock again.

Louis' eyes followed the trail of blood droplets. They lead to the living room where they'd gathered by the window. Hand marks were on the plastered wall. The blood then exited the room and gathered at the foot of the stairs in front of Louis, and then lead up them. Louis followed them, stepping in the quietest places. He heard her now, whimpering in the bathroom like a lost puppy.

Louis went to his room and put down his bag. He was about to remove his shoes but went against the idea. He paced up and down his room for a while, bitting his nails; and sat on his bed to read a comic book about two boys going on adventures together; and wished that he could have raspberry rose hair like the hero of his comic did; and he remembered that he could never die his hair as Mother would go berserk. After thinking all of this, he realised that there was no use in hiding, and the thumping of his own heart hadn't decreased since he'd tried to forget about it. Mother was still going to kill him, and he couldn't do anything.

He couldn't do anything unless he tried, and Mother hadn't raised a quitter.

Louis left his room, approaching the whimpers behind the semi-closed bathroom door. He could see the whole bathroom in the mirror that hung above the sink, and so he looked through the crack in the door. Mother was sitting in the bath, fully dressed, probably in cold water, with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She'd smoked a lot, Louis wanted to throw up from the smell. He was, however, almost reassured to see both of her eyes open, even if the lid of her left one was swollen and heavily bruised. She looked as if she'd been given a black eyes, and it made her look funny. Louis didn't find her as scary as he usually did.

He pushed the door open and walked in.
Cigarettes were everywhere-all over the floor, in the un-flushed toilet, in the sink, in the bath, over the counter; there seemed to be no place left in that tiny bathroom that had not been touched by a cigarette. Some were smoked, most were not, but they all smelt horrible. The towels had been yanked from the rack, as well, and were on the floor in a blood-stained and damp heap. Louis' bath toys were broken, his little soldiers all decapitated and floating lifelessly on the surface of the cold red bath water. All of Mother's bottles had been emptied and smashed, and the shards of glass covered the tiles that must have cracked from the pressure.

"Mother?" Louis asked, trying to catch his mother's attention as she payed none to him and continued to sit in the bath, staring ahead as if she'd died and frozen solid in there. "Are you asleep?"

Her eyes were open, but she did look asleep; so much, in fact, that Louis jumped when her head clicked towards him like clockwork. She smiled stiffly at him, her mouth twisting up but that was the only part of her face that moved.

"Mother, what happened to your eye?" Louis asked, looking under the bathroom counter for clean towels and being both surprised and glad that they were untouched. He turned back to mother and jumped yet again when he found her leaning out of the bath, hand extended towards him, smiling frightfully. Louis stood up and put the towel over his shoulder. "Did you hurt it on something?"

"You did this, brat." Mother snarled, smile still there but it was clear she no longer controlled her body. She would not attack Louis on her own accord, and even if she did, it would not be when even she'd hope. "You did thats to me! Bastard!"

She snarled and screamed at Louis, lashing out with insults but her body didn't move in the cold waters of the bath. Confusion passed over Louis' face-curious, fake confusion.

"No, Mother, you hurt it yourself. Do you not remember? You walked into the cupboard above the kitchen sink and bumped your eye. Do you not remember? I asked you 'does it hurt?' and you said 'no, it doesn't'. After that, I put ice on your eye, do you not remember? I put ice on your eye and you told me that I was a good boy and that you love me with all of your heart and you always did... You told me that.. you love me.. that I am special and that I work so hard for you.. and you.. love me.. please-love me.."

He swallowed and turned away from her. He watched himself in the mirror. His face was covered in little scars and plasters. His eyes were less blue than they'd been before, he was sure of that, and the happiness he'd had due to pure obliviousness was now gone. He turned from himself to watch Mother in the bath. The right side of her face had drooped, and the left was covered in chapped blood from her eye.

"I did not hurt you, Mother. I am not your enemy. I am not an abuser. I did not abuse you. I did not hurt you. I would never hurt you. I would never hurt anyone. It was not me."

"You are not my abuser." Mother repeated, like clockwork, "You are not my enemy. I love you, Louis. I love you, my son."

*

Hello, everyone!

I hope that you liked this chapter, thank you so much for being patient xx

What did you think about it? What do you think will happen next?

With my love, Lucy.