When Love Heals - A Niall Horan Fanfic

Chapter Thirty Four.

Niall slept on the chair next to Lydia's bed, his hand clinging to her's even in sleep.

He had come back to surprise her, to hang out with her for the day before he headed back to America yet again. New York had always been one of his favourite places to visit, but at the moment he was starting to resent it.

Doctor Hanson explained to Niall that the therapy just wasn't really working. Yes, they were going to stick with it for a little while longer, but it was expected that it wouldn't work. The tumour in Lydia's brain was stubborn and refused to be damaged even by all the deadly radiation they threw at it. They couldn't do another operation, the tumour was in such a difficult part of the brain that if they tried it would leave Lydia paralysed and most likely, brain dead.

With each word that the doctor spoke, Niall felt his chest growing heavier and heavier, like there was a bag of rocks in the place where his heart used to be. He wondered whether it would start to crush his lungs next, since he was already finding it hard to breathe.

Every second with Lydia Niall savoured. He had been stubborn before, had claimed to everything and everyone that Lydia was going to get better. It was like he was a child who had just found out Santa Claus wasn't real. He didn't want to accept the information but he didn't know what else to do. In his eyes, Lydia wasn't going to die. But he knew that wishful thinking wasn't going to help in this situation.

Niall went back to New York the next day. He hated saying goodbye to Lydia yet again, but there was nothing else he could do and she told him to go anyway. She couldn't even get out of the bed that day and Niall hated the sinking feeling in his stomach that he might never see her strong enough to walk anywhere ever again.

His despair was clear to his bandmates. They were so concerned about him; the upbeat boy with the sparkling blue eyes was slowly drawing away into a shell, worry slowly eating him alive.

It was even worse when the media caught hold of what had Niall flying back and forth from New York every few days. He had been spotted at the hospital too many times to be able to deny anything, and after one of the nurses accidentally spilled that Lydia was in hospital, everything seemed to just spiral out of control. The papers got a hold of old information about last time Lydia had cancer and they just seemed to click everything into place.

Front pages were filled with headlines of Niall's heartbreak. Some claimed that it was all a publicity stunt. Some claimed that Niall only got together with Lydia because he knew she wouldn't be around long. Some claimed that she was already on her death bed. Niall denied nor confirmed anything. Surely the purple circles under his eyes told them enough.

***

"Hi, it's me."

"Niall, I'm kind of busy this second." Meredith's familiar voice filled the phone speaker. Niall was back in America yet again and he had started to ring Meredith regularly for any information she could give him on the situation or simply just for a chat. Niall was quickly coming to not only respect, but really love, his girlfriend's best friend. She was the only person he felt comfortable speaking to about it all because she felt exactly the same. She loved Lydia just as much as Niall did and they both found comfort in just hearing the other's soothing words, even if they knew they were lying about how everything would be okay.

Niall knew that if it came to be the worse situation there could be, he would always stay in touch with Meredith. They had a bond now, a mutual love of someone so strong that it could not be broken.

"Okay... " Niall trailed off as he heard retching sounds in the background. "Wait, Mer are you at the hospital?"

But the only response was the beeping sound that Meredith had hung up and then the haunting silence.