Them. | The Final Installment of the Him Series | Joe Jonas Fanfiction

Five.

How did I forget to turn of the motion detection on the baby monitors? It's probably one of the most basic things to remember. I knew seeing them on the cameras would only make things harder for me... but I can't say I expected for Joe to show up on the other end, let alone show up and talk directly to me, just in case I happened to be listening.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't need to hear half of what he said, no matter how painful. My assumptions on how he's been doing, how he feels about my decision, all of it is now answered. I know exactly where he stands and relieved is honestly an understatement. I never realized how much of my wonder was pent up inside of me, wanting to be let out. Thankfully the answers I was waiting for were positive, not negative. Half of me expected for him to want nothing to do with me anymore, too angry to want me to come home.

Bullshit. I knew better.

I blink the tears away, roughly rubbing my face to try and get the evidence to disappear, turning off the notifications and throwing my phone to the side, pulling my laptop back onto my lap and continuing my deep dive, thanks to Jaclyn's insight, I've been looking into a whole new database of information since we got back to Hope's an hour ago. I can't say I'm not slightly more hopeful, though I'm trying to prevent myself from hoping too much... it only ends with disappointment here recently.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The knock is soft, gentle.

"Come in," I answer softly, continuing to type away.

"Hey," Stella says gently, walking into the room and closing the door. "Can I sit?"

I nod, leaving my eyes glued to the computer. "Yeah, what's up?"

She sits, her hands folded in her lap, playing with her fingers... just like Willa does.

"Why are you anxious?" I ask.

She furrows her brows. "How did you-"

"You play with your fingers," I sigh, gesturing to her hands before looking back to the computer. "Willa does that too."

She gulps. "Oh. I um, I heard Joe's voice... on the baby monitor. I mean, I heard you listening to him."

Shit. Dammit.

"I just wanted to check on you," she says softly. "I wanted to make sure you're okay after hearing him say everything he did and all."

I sigh. "I'm fine, Stella."

She reaches over, gently closing the laptop overtop my hands, making me move them and her close it the rest of the way.

"Addie."

I sigh again, looking at her. "Stella, it doesn't matter."

"What do you mean?"

"My answer doesn't matter. It's always going to be the same. No. I'm not okay. I'm not going to be okay. I should be at home with my daughters and my husband. But I'm not. I'm here, back in Texas, trying to figure all of this shit out even though it shouldn't be happening in the first place. So, no. I'm not okay. I'm not going to be okay until I am back in Joe's arms and holding my daughters in my own. I'm not going to be okay until I'm back with my family and we're all together and they're safe. Until then, my answer is always going to be no," I tell her, letting out a heavy breath. "So, it doesn't matter, Stella. Because it doesn't change anything."

She frowns. "Addie... I know you're not really going to be okay until after you're back with them. I know that. But the least I can do is still check in with you and make sure that you're stable."

I blink a few times, furrowing my brows.

"You're not sleeping, you're not eating. All of your focus is going in on the research and I get it, Addie, I do. I promise. I know why. But the only thing that not sleeping and not eating is going to do is make it a longer period of time before we can get you back to them. We need to keep it healthy, that's why I'm here to help. So, this is what we're going to do."

I sigh.

"Do you do better and get further with the research at night or during the day?"

"The night, probably, I guess," I sigh, shaking my head.

"Okay," she nods. "So, what we're going to do is take turns."

"What do you mean, take turns? Stella, we both need to be working on this."

"And we will," she says. "At different times."

"Stella-"

"No," she says. "I'm not going to let you fall off the deep end. You need to sleep. You need to eat and so do I. So, you will wake up at night, research, eat, all of the normal human things. Then, when it's morning, we'll switch. I'll stay up during the day and research, you do it at night."

I sigh. "I don't know. I feel like we both should be working on it at the same time, it'll get more done."

"No, it won't," she shakes her head. "You're exhausting yourself trying to get ten times more research done and it's actually just making us get less done because you can't focus as much, you can't get anything done and you're stressing. Please Addie. Try it my way."

I know she's not going to give up this idea until I just do it. She's not going to. I might as well just give it a try. An actual try. She'll know if I don't.

"Fine."

She sighs, nodding. "Okay, good. So, what I want you to do is put this away," she says, grabbing the laptop. "And take a nap. We'll do 8pm to 8am and 8am to 8pm. Deal?"

I sigh, glancing at the clock.

3:37pm.

I could just wait until she's in her room then keep researching.

"Okay, fine. So I sleep until 8."

"Yes," she nods. "You sleep until 8."

I groan, grabbing my phone and setting an alarm for 8pm, noticing her taking my laptop with her as she leaves the room.

"What are you doing?"

"I'll bring it back when my shift is over," she says. "I know you. If I leave it, you'll just get up when I'm out of the room and start researching again."

I frown.

"I know you, Addie, we grew up together!" she says, leaving the room and closing the door. "Goodnight!"

I sigh heavily, feeling exhausted and not at all tired all at once. How am I supposed to sleep? It's bright as hell outside and I'm in research mode. But without my laptop my brain on research mode is useless.

I just want to get back to them. How is that a bad thing?

***

just a little bonus chapter because I LOVE YOUUUUUU 

what are we thinking?

what are we feeling?

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all my love,

shan:)