Fate Chances Moonlight ☾ l.s. AU

3:3

** I'm sorry in advance for all the "undefined" things followed by giant gaps in the story. I don't know why they're there, and when I came to edit them out they don't show up here. So unfortunately you'll just have to ignore them. <3

Louis wakes in the middle of the night to the weirdest dream. Harry's in it, but that isn't the weird part. The weird part is that Jo wasn't.

He hardly slept after that, so when he wakes again to his alarm, the last thing he wants to do is get out of bed. But unlike in his ludicrous dream, he has a daughter and she's probably already awake. If he stays in bed any longer, god only knows what kind of mischief she'll get into. Especially after that food fight yesterday.

As he drags himself to Jo's room, he wonders if he ever did get around to telling Harry there's a time and place for such things. Now he can't remember. They talked for so long, and he thinks most of it was about that food fight, but fuck if he can actually be sure.

Like he knew she would be, Jo is already awake, pretend-painting her window again. She doesn't react to him, and he stays there in her doorway watching her. He should get her an easel for her birthday. Or maybe for Easter. Her birthday isn't until September. Then she could actually paint.

When he finally joins her, it's to fall into her small bed while she continues pretend-painting. He doesn't say anything and neither does she, and she doesn't stop what she's doing. So he watches her for as long as he can before his eyelids begin to droop and his limbs feel too heavy to move. "Jo, don't let me fall asleep," he thinks he mumbles.

She doesn't respond, probably didn't even hear him. And he falls asleep.

When he wakes for the third time, he isn't alone. He hadn't been asleep for long this time - at least he doesn't think so - but Jo had relocated anyway from her window to his side at some point and had chosen to lie with him. She's asleep now, her small head using his more outstretched arm as a pillow. He reaches over and moves a strand of hair from her eyelashes, carefully putting it back in its place.

People always say she looks just like him, but at this angle there is no denying she looks exactly like his mum. It's weird to say, so he usually doesn't, but it's as though all of her looks skipped him completely and went straight to Jo. She has the hair and the pouty lips - they're small yet, but he sees them fleshing out into his mum's, so distinct and specific to her that Lottie had them tattooed onto her arm after she died. Along with the lips, she has the hair. Louis' hair is brown too, sure, but it's straight as a ruler. Jo's alternates between wavy and curly, depending on the day, and it grows like a weed. He's met other three-year-olds, and not a one has hair like hers. It's insane. Louis needed Lottie to teach him how to French braid just to keep it out of her face sometimes, because even pony tails aren't always enough.

It's in her eyes, too. Mostly in her eyes is where Louis sees it, really. They're definitely his mum's eyes. He looks over to the framed photograph on Jo's nightstand just to be sure, but he already knows.

His movement must have jostled Jo enough, because it's then that she awakens.

"I said not to let me fall asleep," he tells her after a few bleary blinks.

She sits up and rubs at her eyes, and then she's climbing over Louis to get off her bed. With a groan, Louis follows - not because he wants to, but because if he doesn't feed her she'll feed herself, and he doesn't exactly plan to give her free reign over their pantry and fridge after yesterday.

It's while he's pouring her a bowl of cereal that he decides he won't be going to work today. He texts Liam to change the sign on the barroom doors so that guests would know, and then he texts Niall that he has the day off. While he's pouring his own bowl of cereal, he gets a phone call.