Locker 17 {Alternate Ending}

Only Then You'll Understand

"Where is he?" Niall says to himself under his breath, checking his phone screen every few minutes. It's been about 2 hours since he called Harry, though it's felt like an eternity. Was he even going to show up? He has to, he said he would, Niall thinks to himself. He quickly snaps out from his state of thought when he hears Louis call him from the hospital bed.

"Hey, you okay there?" Louis lays under the hospital bed sheets, looking fragile and weak. The machines are scattered around his hospital bed, wires connected to them in all directions. He's staring at Niall across the room, head tilting to the side, concerned. "I'm the one that's dying here, I should be the one looking as worried as you," he lets out small chuckle trying to ease the mood.

"Don't say that Louis," he sighs as he begins to walk over to the bed. Niall isn't up for jokes right now, especially given the circumstances Louis' in.

Louis' been at the hospital for the past few days following the complications with his heart. He'd been fainting a lot more often than usual and it'd gotten to the point where he couldn't be left alone. But of course, Niall didn't hesitate to look after him. He's been his caregiver for the past months, the past months in which neither of them have seen Harry.

It's been a stressful, secretive, and silent time for both of them. As much as Niall wanted to inform Harry of what was going on, he couldn't. He wouldn't allow himself to tell him, not after he had promised Louis he would do everything to prevent Harry from finding out. There were too many things that were left unsaid since the last time Louis and Harry had seen each other. There were too many unanswered questions, too many problems, too much fixing to do.

"But maybe you should tell him, Lou. It's not fair to him and I know he would never forgive me for keeping this from him."

Time and time again, Niall would try and convince Louis to call Harry, let him know what was really going on.

No luck.

Louis didn't want to worry Harry, knowing that Harry was probably having the time of his life at uni, and maybe, just maybe, had met someone. Louis wasn't going to be the one responsible for telling Harry, knowing that he might drop whatever he was doing and rush to his side. He wasn't going to use his sickness for pity, not even to bring Harry back in his life, at least not like this.

Things had been going as well as they could be in the last week. Louis had stopped fainting, which meant his heart was gaining back its strength, or so he thought. Everything appeared to be getting better and this gave Louis hope. Hope that this was just another bump on his road to recovery, that it was only temporary, and that things had to get worse before they got better.

But in the last 24 hours, everything changed, everything that he thought was getting better, was no longer in frame.

Earlier that the day, Niall had gone up to check on Louis at home. Their home since Niall had been living with Louis for a while. There, he found Louis lying on the bedroom floor, unconscious, sprawled over the rug. As any person would do, Niall had called an ambulance, shocked, clueless towards what he could do.

This brought them to where they're at now. Throughout the last couple of hours, Louis continued to come in and out of consciousness, his heart rate slowly deteriorating as time passed. According to the doctors, his heart was failing, really failing. It was at its end, too weak to properly function, too weak to continue on as it had.

Louis had been battling his heart condition for years, but never in a million years did he think it'd actually get to this point. He'd been told that he would need a heart transplant sooner or later, though he never imagined it'd be this soon. Louis thought he'd have more time, enough time to receive a new heart. He thought.