The Bodyguard » Niall Horan

10 » Mercer Hargreaves, nice to meet you too

We spent the rest of the day talking in his backyard. Niall told me things that weren't in his dossier, and I told him more about me.

" My brother Ronan and I both have been adopted by a couple from London, the McCoys. They already had a daughter called Claire. My adoptive father was one of the men involved with the investigation of my mothers' murder and came to check up on us at one of our neighbors who took us in after seeing me on the street. I still wore my bloodied pajamas. He told me he never thought I'd recover from this when he saw the absent look on my face. His paternal heart couldn't take the sight of my brother and me, so after talking to his wife and a lot of lawyers, they adopted me and my brother." 

Niall took a sip of his water. " Was it hard to adjust?" I nodded.

" Yes, even harder than the McCoys expected. I had daily therapy sessions, went from a public school to a private school and had a sister all of a sudden. All of that with my murdered mother still on my mind was too hard to process all at once. But, my adjustment was easier than Ronan's." I stretched my legs in front of me. " He's seven years older than me and came in contact with the wrong crowd." I thought back to that time. I couldn't grasp how hard that must've been for Kenneth and Helen.

" He's doing fine now. He's living in Darwin, Australia with his wife and has a steady job." I shrugged. " We were lucky to have been adopted by the McCoys. I haven't come across people with their kindness just yet." 

Niall was quiet and stared up at the clouds above him. " And that's how easy life can turn around," He muttered and turned his head towards me. " Are you still having contact with your father?" 

I shook my head. " No, I haven't seen him since I had to testify against him in court. I don't know how old I was exactly, but he'd been locked up for a while. I remember he had grown out his beard and mustache." 

The birds whistled their happy songs, filling up the quietness in our conversation.

Niall had literally turned around after my outburst. I thought, somehow, he looked at me differently. With that, I mean that he thought I was more human now than I was a 'government.' 

" Why did you keep your own surname, anyway?" Niall asked after a while.

" Fulton's my mother's surname. My brother and I took her surname because we didn't want to be associated with our father anymore, considering the murder of a mother witnessed by a child was covered by every news outlet in the world. Hargreaves used to be my surname." 

" Why not McCoy?" Niall was full of questions today. I tried to answer them as well as I could.

" Because," I started and crossed my legs, " we were allowed to choose. We talked it over and came to the decision we both wanted our mothers' surname. They were alright with it. Fulton is a rather common surname, more common than Hargreaves. I'd like to bet people still connect Hargreaves to that horrific murder." 

" I believe I have heard of it, yeah. Perhaps when it was on the news, and I was in the room playing." Niall shrugged. " But other than that, not much." 

Niall told me about his divorced parents, his mother and her husband, his father who still lived in the town he originated from, his brother who was married and had a child, the beginning of his career I could still remember, and everything that happened after X Factor.

I appreciated his openness more than I expected I would.