Moments

The Settlements

I wake up in the morning to a messy mix of blond and brown hair in my face, my arms wrapped around him. "Morning," I whisper.

"Morning." Already, I hear footsteps around the house.

"Liam checked on us just before he slept," I explain. A quick peck on my forehead, he scrambles over the bed and back into his settlement.

"What time did you sleep last night?"

"No idea. Quite late, I guess. Least I don't have much to do so I can sleep a little longer," I say as I turn over, back to the bed and Niall.

"Guys. Wake up."

"But Liam, I didn't sleep until way after you did."

"Niall, deal with this child for me. Get her to wake up if you would please."

"Liam, you're gonna have to get me up as well then."

"Children these days," he sighs. I don't care, I just ignore him and get back to sleep. Really tired. Wake up early, you're tired. Wake up later, still tired.

"On Youtube again?"

"There's a clip I will never get over. This one. I watched this every single day, almost." I clicked on Best Song Ever which, at the time, I had thought was the best they had sung so far. It was no longer engineered specifically for 8 year olds, but more for the majority of their fan base. I swear I could hear Liam sigh.

"This one."

"Niall, come 'ere for a minute. Favourite Youtube video ever. You better see this one." Liam left. I don't know what he thinks we might do.

"Ahh! I'm old enough to be my dad!"

"I gave that one glance and knew it was you. Louis took the longest to sink in. I'm never letting him live this down."

"Zayn. He'll never live this down."

"He'll go down as that guy who dressed up as a girl and looked like one," I giggle. I can't stop giggling seeing Zayn dressed that way.

"I do not hear anything you plot!"

"Just don't tell Zayn."

"You've got nothing to do? I'll make you a Twitter account. Gimme your phone."

"Why?"

"You still don't have an account."

"Whatever, then."

"If you're ready we'll make it official."

"We've got to do it sometime or other, might as well make it quick. They've seen us holding hands anyway."

"You sure? Because we can always hold it out until you're absolutely ready or they are absolutely definite."

"I'm not the old Annabelle who would withdraw from social life in the face of hate."

"I still like to make sure."

"I'm more open to talking to people about how I feel now. I'm not going to suffer silently and turn out with a case of depression or something. The fans have a vague idea where we are, but they've no real clue about Zayn. If they're going to mob, I'll duck around to Zayn's and chill there. Or maybe I should try blending in with Little Mix, I'm sure they could hide an Asian under all that hair. I'm fine with it, if you want, you go ahead and post that." My phone buzzed in my hand. He'd mentioned me and that was the notification.

I've had tweets from all over Europe, and America by morning. Some are nice. About 50 of them. Some are replies to his tweet, others are directly sent to me. None of the remotely pleasant were from across the pond. There was one all the way from Australia that I found a pleasantly vast change from the Americans, there were quite a few from Germany too. I still recall vividly, our teacher telling us the German exchange might ask us when we would stand up. And then, before we left for Germany, I asked Theresa if there were credit card facilities everywhere in Germany and she replied with 'maybe you should watch on the Internet' which I then proceeded to correct. And while I certainly wasn't expecting too many nice ones, I didn't realise I could attract so much negative attention. Bet they won't come up with a ship name too soon after this welcome. "You alright? You don't look too happy."