Never Letting Go. (Sequel to Til Death Do Us Part.)

39. Remind Me

~Louis' P.O.V

After El was dead, I took the liberty of removing my jacket and draped it over her lifeless and emotionless face. Before walking out of the room, I got on my knees and placed a gentle kiss to her knuckles and laid her hands across her chest. Even though she couldn't hear me, I whipsered that I loved her.

I got to my feet and joined the others in the the doorway. We all crossed the hallway and walked a few doors down to get to the classroom where Eleanor had put the kids.

I'm just glad she had the decency to keep the kids from seeing such a horrible thing take place. They've already seen too much. With Anne, Neiland, and Gemma dying in front of them, they didn't need to see more of this situation.

I guess she was her old motherly self when it came to her son and Niall's daughter.

I peered through the small window and at the two kids, sitting in the floor. Claire was crying and had her fingers stuffed in her mouth, with saliva running down her arm and hand, while Mark sat about a foot in front of her, sucking on his chubby thumb with a steady stream of tears falling down his round, plump, and pale face.

I couldn't go in there without talking to Zayn about his decision to sign over his rights.

As everyone else went into the room, I caught hold of Zayn's jacket sleeve and pulled him back a ways down the hallway where you could hardly hear our conversation.

"Zayn, this is ridiculous." I say, shoving my hands into my back pockets.

He scrunched his eyebrows up.

"Why is it ridiculous, Lou? I see the way you look at that little boy and wish he was your own. I'm just giving you what you've always wanted. After all, I had no right to steal it from you in the first place." He says.

"I don't want your parental rights. Mark's not my son. He's yours and I'm not going to take that from you." I say, shaking my head.

"Louis, it's not an offer. It's too late anyway. They've already been signed over. He's yours now."

I sighed and ran my hand through my hair, thinking about how I'm going to be able to handle knowing that Mark's actually mine now.

Mark will have to start calling me dad and he'll have to stay in that habit for the rest of his life. He may or may not want to be with Zayn. He may be completely against this when he gets older and he could also continue to call Zayn dad. But when he does start to get older, he'll wonder why I'm his dad and why he looks so much like Zayn in the first place. Of course, I'll tell him when he's reached the age of being able to cope with news of this sort, but in the time between now and then, what will I do?

How will Zayn feel about losing his one and only child to his best friend?

I don't want to take away such honerable rights to take care of a child. Especially from Zayn. He's had it worse than the rest of us. Other than Elizabeth. He was jumped, his heart was shattered, his flat was wrecked, he's been shot a numerous amount of times. He took a bullet for his son to survive when we were in the hospital with Liz when she had Claire. He barely even survived that shot to the abdomen. The bullet almost pierced a kidney and he could have had a severe amount of internal bleeding if it would have hit a vein or something.

"Alright, I'll take him." I shrug.

Zayn smiled and patted my back.

"Good and don't try and send him back in a box with ribbon tied around it." He jokes, wagging his finger at me.

I chuckled and we went back into the room. I walked over to Mark and crouched in front of him, holding him by his underarms and lifted him up and hoisted him onto my hip. His big brown eyes began to water and he looked over my shoulder and at Zayn, stretching his arms and opened and closed his hands.