I Sail With You | l.s.

Chapter 19

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After the crew has tended to their wounds, celebrated their win, and drunken an absorbent amount of alcohol, Louis finally comes knocking at Harry's door. The second that it opens, Harry turns around, standing a few feet from the Alpha, though it's like they're miles apart.

Harry quietly admits, "You saved me once again, Lou."

"I will always save you, Hazza."

Harry cries, right there before Louis completely unashamed. Sitting down on the bed, the Alpha comes next to him, rubbing against his back. The Omega appreciates the gesture, but he has more to say. Within Louis' arms, Harry peers up at him and says the words that have been taking hostage in his heart since he was a kid.

"Louis, I love you."

The Alpha runs his thumb across Harry's cheek, not expressing the joy at hearing those words like the Omega had hoped he would. "I feel the same way, I do. But I can't say it back until you're no longer a prisoner of mine."

"When have I ever been your prisoner? Truly?"

"It's not the point."

Harry slides from Louis' arms, "It is. If you take me back to England, Lou, they will never let me leave again. They will hold me against my will, and force me to mate another Alpha Prince that they find suitable."

"I'm sorry," Louis says. "But I have to do this. I just, I can't accept your love knowing you've been held here against your will. I want to know that this is really where you want to be. I want to know that when you're back in England, you'd still pick here over the castle you call home."

"Louis, I could have a million castles – none of them would be home without you."

"You say that now, but one day you could grow to resent me. I don't want that, Harry. I already told you that there's no love in this life, but you've made me feel things I thought I had lost. But I...I can't go on, risk everything for the both of us if it's not entirely what you want. I can't bear that guilt."

"And bringing me back to England is the only way for me to prove this to you?"

Louis sighs, "It's the only way I know how. I have to let you go, I have to let you decide this lifestyle, this love, for yourself."

Louis presses a kiss into Harry's cheek, something Harry had hoped for so long ago, though now he wishes he didn't know how it felt to be there. How Louis' warmth felt to take hold there. There's no sleep for the remainder of the night, and come morning, Harry is faced with the unwelcoming sight of his family's castle. There are embraces between a few of the crew members such as Liam and Ed, and Niall sobs as he tangles Harry into a hug, but the sight of the ship sailing away from shore without the Omega - is the hardest of all. Even harder than Louis' longing glance of goodbye.

All too soon, Harry is approached by guards who bring him into his weeping mother's arms. His father doesn't display any trace of happiness when he sees Harry alive, but at least his sister makes up for it in heaps. Clutching onto his torso, squeezing him so tight that he's sure she's never going to let him go again.

Her embrace is the only thing Harry finds that feels nice.

Once the homecoming is done, the Omega Prince is sent to his room to wash the filth from his skin. Claire prepares a hot bath for him to take, and it's quite easy Harry notes, falling back into this routine. But it's not what he wants. He doesn't want routine, he doesn't want prepared, he doesn't want planned out. Harry wants daring and dangerous and reckless, arriving at each day not knowing what's to come. He wants purpose and passion and exhilaration, and this - this is not that. This was never that.

Letting the water swell around him, Harry thinks about that day out at sea, when he asked fate to change what was to come, to change the arrangement. When Will showed up, Harry couldn't imagine how he was the answer the Omega was seeking, but Harry sees it now.

Reminiscing as he soaks, Harry recalls that he asked to be brought home, and sitting in this castle Harry has never thought of it as such. That's why fate didn't bring him back here. That's why fate brought him back to Louis. Because the Alpha is the only home the Omega's ever claimed. So technically fate had given him exactly what he wanted, he just hadn't realized it at the moment.

Not that it matters now anyway. Harry's right back into a society of politics and etiquette and Omegas being less than they are. Struck back into this family that will use his bond as a bargaining chip for the next kingdom to possess. But the Omega doesn't care anymore, not like before. Because now he's experienced love, felt love. They will never be able to take that away from him.

And while his parents will try their best to find the next best Alpha Prince, Harry is no longer the best Omega to mate. He's cheeky, opinionated, defiant, and insubordinate in all the ways an Omega is not meant to be. So good luck to his parents, Harry thinks, in their attempt to locate another mate. In fact, it will be all the more amusing to watch as his parents bring Alpha after Alpha to their home in hopes of a deal, only for them to meet Harry and walk out. It will be all the more enjoyable to see as his parents give lesson after lesson in the hopes of refinement, only for none of them to work. No, none of them will work at all.

Because being caught by Will Tommo has ruined Prince Harry Styles for good.

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WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK NOW!?!?!??!!? How do you feel about Dante?