Count On Me | Niam

Chapter Ninety-Seven

Liam

"When do you next leave, Papa?"

Of all the many questions Liam had learnt to expect Chloe to randomly ask him, that was not one. The question caught him off guard and sort of forced Liam to look over at the eight-year-old rather than continue to stare down at his phone as he had been doing for the last hour.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. He'd been entirely preoccupied with texting Niall, though Chloe had been asleep for most of that. Or so he'd thought. For over a week now, he and Niall had taken it in turns to be home with her while she was off ill, and he'd joined her on the sofa, intending to watch the whichever Disney film they were onto now, only she'd crashed immediately after she'd finished pretending to eat her breakfast.

Liam had sort of been expecting her to be out of it for most of the day, though looking over at her, he thought she looked much better. She had some colour back, her eyes were bright and she'd now shifted so that she was sat upright, enshrouded in more of a blanket fort rather than curled under her blankets, and the question was technically a good sign.

Technically. Whilst there had been a week — a whole, peaceful week — where he hadn't been asked how many bottles of cola it would take to reach from their balcony to the ground outside, or how many whales would have to be harnessed to a cruise ship to pull it along the absence of impossible questions had been rather worrying, though now she was asking questions that meant conversations never ended nicely.

Nevertheless, Liam put his phone down and looked over at his daughter, doing his best to answer. "You mean for work, on tour? Not for ages. Couple of years, at least, if we don't take another break. Why?"

"'Cos you just seem to have been home for ages. I just thought-" Chloe broke off, shrugging, reaching up to push her hair out of her face as she seemed to ponder where that thought might have been going. "You left- Ages ago, Daddy told me this happened- You left before Daddy had me, and you went away like you've just been."

When she got them all out, Chloe's words felt like a punch to the gut and Liam could only blink at her, wondering if he'd misheard her. Impossibly, though, he hadn't. Chloe didn't seem to think anything of what she'd just said, didn't think that she'd said anything beyond a mere query, her brown eyes wide and expecting, waiting for Liam to answer, even though he was still sort of...floundering.

Eventually, he dredged up something he thought might have been a complete sentence, maybe even a coherent one if he was lucky. "Your dad- Said that? Told you that? In that way? Are you sure, because- Because that's different, Chlo. So different."

Chloe simply stared up at him, watching him curiously, and Liam tried to remember how to breathe, reminding himself that it was just a question, that, nowadays, she meant nothing truly personal by it, and he shook his head emphatically. "Chlo, I'm staying. For good. I promise."

That time, it was Chloe's turn to frown. "You didn't stay before, though."

"That's different, Chlo." The choked feeling in his throat returned and Liam couldn't quite meet Chloe's gaze, reevaluating her intent behind the conversation and wondering how he could possibly extricate himself from it as he not to lose it. Trying was in vain, however, because Chloe shrugged and shifted so she could look up at him and continued to ask questions of him, in a manner Liam would never have expected. "How is it? You went away for work, back then, Daddy said. That's why you were away now, too. How is it different? Why are you staying now?"

"Christ, Chlo."

Her insistent frown didn't go away, leaving Liam with only one option. Well, technically, he could insist that she was ill and make her go to bed or lie back down and then run away to the kitchen, but that was not mature or adult-y or appropriately parent-y. Instead of hiding, he answered her. Sort of. "Why do you want to know, poppet? What do you even know about the past, Chlo? This happened before you were around."

Okay, so he was answering questions with more questions, but still. It gave him a moment to stall and to remember that he was talking to an eight-year-old. An eight-year-old who looked up at him as though he was way more transparent than he'd hoped to be as she said, "I know what Daddy told me. He told me that you left, before. For work. And I want to know because...if you're staying now, why didn't you then?"

"Christ, Chlo."

Repeating himself only caused Chloe to roll her eyes at him, but it gave Liam a second to think and he gathered her up Into a hug, rightfully assuming that these questions were a front for some kind of worry or hurt. One she'd relaxed a little, resting her head against his shoulder, he managed to find the words that would hopefully put her at ease. "I didn't stay then, back before you, Chlo, because I didn't know. Me and your dad...we were seventeen, Chlo. We were kids, really. And my dream, my dream came true and I got caught up and I forgot to look back. If I'd known, Chloe, I'd have been there for you as I am now."

"Oh." Chloe's response left something to be desired, but Liam understood. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, hoping that would be the end of things, though that hope was quashed when he realised that there was a question left for him to ask. "Is this why...you're not overly happy with the way things are right now? With the baby, with the idea of a sibling? Because Chlo, we're not replacing you, me being here now rather than then isn't anything like that, poppet."

"No. Maybe." Hiding her face in Liam's shirt sort of muffled her words, but he thought he'd understood her mumbling well enough to run a hand through her curls and shake his head emphatically. "That's not what this is, I promise."

Some sniffling and an indeterminate amount of time later, Chloe was cuddled back into her duvet, leaning against Liam, both of them ostensibly watching the film she'd chosen, though Liam couldn't help but glance down at her every so often, watching her and trying to figure out how he'd explain this to Niall.

Or, more precisely, how he'd explain this conversation to Niall without upsetting Niall or making it sound like he thought Niall had warped Chloe's view of past events, which he didn't really think at all.

In the end, he told Niall over dinner, biting his lip as Niall's expression fell and a grimace overtook the smile he'd worn moments earlier. It made him want to take it back, keep the conversation with Chloe to himself, do what he always did when Niall looked any kind of hurt. He pulled him in close, wrapping an arm around him and hiding his face in Niall's neck, waiting for the tension in Niall's shoulders to fade before he tried again with the explaining. "But it's a good thing, right? That we tackled this? That we talked, and she knows otherwise?"

"She thought that, Li. For months. And-" Ignoring the tears that threatened to fall, Niall shook his head pulling away from Liam and heading to Chloe's room, where she'd finally crawled back into her own bed nearly an hour after her bedtime, though he hesitated by her door, torn.

He turned back to Liam and this time went voluntarily into his embrace, curling up with him on the sofa and resting his head in Liam's lap, for once not minding the hand Liam had on his stomach, or the nonsense that Liam wasn't even aware he was saying.

"It's gonna be great, you, me, Daddy and your sister. Your sister's gonna love you, you know? She pretends she's not sure, but it's gonna be great."

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Okay, so I'm full of shit. 

I fully intended on updating less than a week after the last chapter but life/the holidays got in the way. 

As did something else. But that is very personal and I don't want to jinx things just yet. But she might be taking up the time I generally spend writing. 

So here's the ever-present apology, but I swear I'm not abandoning this. The finish line is finally in sight, like for realsies. 

As always, a massive thank you to anyone who's still here and reading, I love you all. I'll try and be better at updating when I say, but by now, my promises mean jack all. 

The end IS in sight, though. Finally. 

This week, I wanna know what you'd like to see before I wrap things up. Even if you have requests for smut. But, again, no promises. 

Thoughts on the chapter?