Forever and Always

Chapter 13: The Nightmare

*Niall’s POV*

I laid there with her, cradling her in my arms.  My grip was tight, protective.  I didn’t want anyone coming near her, to hurt her.  I felt angry, hurt, even a little guilty.  It was anger I felt the most though.  How could someone do this to her? I wanted to punch something, scream at someone, anything to make me feel better.  It broke my heart that someone hurt her like that, even more so that I couldn’t stop it.  I wanted nothing more than to be able to protect her.  I always have, that’s why I always begged her to be the princess when we played, so that I could pretend to be the knight in shining armor that saved her and protected her from the evil witch, or in her case the evil warlock.  I couldn’t save her when we were ten because I was only ten, but now, I was older and I had all the resources in the world at my fingertips and I still let her down; there was no excuse for that. 

She was fast asleep in my arms, but I was wide awake, it was only 3 in the afternoon when we got home but she was tired, and who can blame her? So I laid there with her while I processed my thoughts.  I was starting to get hungry but I wasn’t going to leave her, she asked me not to, which meant I wasn’t leaving her side come hell or high water.  I already failed her once; it wasn’t going to happen again. So I decided to distract my stomach with my thoughts.

She was pregnant.  Each time I thought about it I had to let it sink in.  I had been thrilled at the hospital, when I thought the baby was mine.  Well at first I was shocked, but then I thought about how cute a little girl with Kat’s big brown eyes and her tiny little smile and I melted.  I know we’re young but in all honesty we could handle a baby.  Kat could probably even manage to work, go to school and take care of the baby, she was always doing a million things to keep herself busy, it wouldn’t be that much different from her everyday life.  Financially speaking we were fine, and that wasn’t even including Kat’s salary, I didn’t know how much she made but judging by the amount of Louis Vuitton I’ve seen her wear, I’m guessing she was pretty well off, not to mention her dad was horrible with money so she swore she would be better with hers.

  There weren’t really any practical objections to the baby just emotional ones.  I guess I wouldn’t really care that the baby isn’t mine, I could deal with that, it’s not like she cheated on me.  Kat had all of the tough issues to deal with.  She would be the one who had to carry a stranger’s child inside of her.  If she could put up with that, then I could certainly get past the fact that the child wasn’t biologically mine, and Kat and I know better than anyone that biology doesn’t define a father.  I don’t know why I was thinking about all of this, ultimately it was her decision, I would just be there to support whatever decision she made.  It was about three hours later that she started to stir from her nap, her eyes prying open to look up at me.

“Fell better princess?” I asked

“A little. But I’m hungry now” she pouted.

“Thank god so am I. What do you want to eat? We still have the Chinese take out in the fridge.”

“Ugh! Dear god no, that sound disgusting.”

“I see the pregnancy symptoms are starting to kick in” I joked, “so what do you want to eat?”

“Hmm. Pancakes!”

“Blueberry or chocolate chip?”

“Both!”

“I love you” I chuckled.

“I love you too.” She mumbled into my chest.

“OK well when you finally get off me I will go start your pancakes.”

“OK OK. I’m getting up. I’m going to go take a shower.”

She rolled out of bed and walked into the bathroom to start her shower.  I wanted to make a cheeky comment about joining her, but I figured she probably wouldn’t appreciate it.  So instead I got up and went to go make her pancakes.