Through The Dark (Niall Horan Fanfic)

Chapter 28

Aubree's POV

After we loaded up Niall's car and went out to breakfast, we headed to Marlene's. It was the 23rd of December and she was throwing an all day Christmas party. Later, we planned to go be on our way to my mum's house, who wanted to say goodbye before I went to ireland with Niall, and then we would go to my dad's to say goodbye as well. And then we'd get on a plane and go to Ireland.
Ireland.
I was excited.
I was nervous.
What if they didn't like me? If they wanted Niall with a prettier, healthier, sweeter girl?
I popped a mint in my mouth, still not liking the feeling of the lingering taste of food in my mouth after I ate. It still made me feel gross and fat. Mints and gum and brushing my teeth always made me feel cleaner. But besides that, I was doing much better.
Niall squeezed my thigh, waking my mind from it's drifting thoughts to let me know we were here.
"Bree!" Marlene screeched as I entered her apartment.
Cassie and Mar's boyfriend were sitting on the couch, supervising the set up of the party that would start anytime. I was kind of relieved that no one but the three of them were there, not wanting Niall and I to be bombarded with questions and people.
I gave Marlene one of the wrapped gifts in my hand, handing Cass the other and telling them not to open them until Christmas. They did the same with me.
Niall and Marlene's boyfriend, (I kept forgetting his name), were now on the couch talking seriously about guitars.
My two best friends smiled at me and Cass asked, "How is everything?"
It sounded like a general question, but it was deeper than that.
How was everything? I asked myself.
I bit my lip.
I looked over at Niall, who was air-guitaring something while speaking to the other lad.
"Everything's great."
With our flight being scheduled around seven, we had to get moving, still needing to go to each of my parents' houses.
My mum immediately wrapped Niall in a hug when she opened the door for us.
The first time she met Niall, she loved him, but then she thought he was distracting me and making me worse for a long period of time, but in the past months, she'd warmed up to him, and noticed how much he made me smile.
I was glad. No matter how many times we fought, and how distant we'd been in the last two or three years, her opinion always was important to me.
She handed both of us large gift bags for our Christmas presents, and I handed her a small, wrapped box. It was a necklace I'd bought her last week during my Christmas shopping. There wasn't much she liked besides scolding me and watching cop shows on television, so I never knew what to get her.
Niall surprised me by running out to his car, claiming he forgot something, and rushing back in with a gift for my mum. She looked so happy. She hugged him again.
My sister arrived unexpectadly. Then I remembered it was a Monday and she always came over for dinner. I was never invited. It was hardly dinner time yet, but she probably heard Niall and I were dropping by and purposely took off work early just to humiliate me.
We congragated in the main room, Niall and I next to each other in the middle of the couch, my mum in a chair and Alyssa in another.
"Your Christmas present," Alyssa got up and handed me a large wrapped box after a conversation revolving around Niall's work.
"Thanks," I said, starting to remember last year's embarrassment from gifts, and added, "I'll open it on Christmas."
"No," she frowned. "Open it now. I want to see your reaction."
Of course she did, I thought. I argued, "No, I like the suspense."
She rolled my eyes, mumbling something about me being immature. Niall nudged my knee with his. I ignored it.
Why did my own family cause me so much stress?
I wanted to leave.
I made a point of checking the time on my iPhone and saying, "Niall, we should probably get going soon if we don't want to miss our flight. Don't you have to be a few hours early?"
He looked at me, but then gave in. "I guess."
"We still have to go to my dad's."
In the car, Niall sighed, trying to get my attention. I ignored it.
"Aubree." He spoke after a few minutes of silence.
"Niall." I was looking out the window, watching trees roll by as we sped down the icy road.
"Your sister wasn't that bad."
I turned to glare at him, making a point, and then turning back to face the frosty window.
"Really, though."
"Niall," I said through gritted teeth.
"What? I just think-"
"Niall! Stop. She's horrible. She wasn't going to act like a bitch in front of you, but she is."
He didn't acknowledge my statement, but continued the concersation with, "You should open the gift that she gave you."
"I want to wait 'til Christmas."
"Is that really why?"
I was silent. I was getting angry. Why wouldn't he just drop the topic?
"Alright, whatever."
"Whatever," I agreed.
When we reached our last stop before the airport, Dad fed us cookies and hot chocolate and handed me a present and asked Niall too many personal questions about his life and his family, and then we were on our way to Ireland, finally.
"Sorry about that," I apologized as we got in the car for my dad asking too much about him.
Niall chuckled, "No, it's okay. You're his daughter. He's allowed to be like that. Seems like a cool guy."
When we got to the airport, there was a bigger crowd than I'd imagined there being.
With security right on my butt, and fans right on their butts, I hung my big purse over my shoulder, and held my suitcase closely behind me, grabbing Niall's hand nervously. He pulled me closer to him, hooking his arm around my waist as he held his luggage in his other, making our way through the crowd with the help of security guards.
"It's okay," Niall whispered in my ear and then kissed the side of my head. Fans screamed. I didn't know if that was good or bad. Niall forced security to let him walk to some fans, not wanting to ignore them. I smiled. He took sharpies and signed their shirts, arms, CDs, magazines, phone cases, anything. Some girl called my name, waving her phone despite security yelling at her. I agreed to take a selfie with her, and smiled widely in the picture. Soon, numerous cameras and phones were thrusted in front of my face, and I was trying smile in as many as I could. We were all laughing and smiling and talking, but then the tall, muscular guards fished me out of there and whisked me away, over to Niall where our hands reconnected.
We were allowed to board the plane, considering the crowd, and it was getting pretty close to the take off time.
I had only been on a plane once, about ten years ago, when my family actually did things together.
Except now it was Niall and I, and we were in first class.
After I had claimed the window and waited for all of the passengers to get on and grabbed Niall's hand during takeoff, I drifted off to sleep, exhausted by the day and not wanting to feel the nervous twirling of my stomach in anticipation of meeting Niall's family.

Niall's POV

I clenched Aubree's hand harder, kind of wanting her to wake up. I was restless about this whole thing, her meeting my parents. I think it was more of excited than nervous that I was feeling, but, either way, I wanted her to wake up and calm me down.
She could calm me down about anything, I just needed her giggle and her arms around me.
I turned my attention to the aisle, also kind of wanting someone to cause a scene in this professional first class seating, being bored out of my mind and nearly driven insane at the silence.
I just needed to calm down.
I tried to close my eyes for a while.
Only about half an hour more, I told myself.
I felt Aubree's head lay against my shoulder, making me perk up, opening my eyes to look down at her sleepy eyes blinking themselves awake. I reached my hand up to stroke her hair, "Good morning."
She giggled and then buried her face in my neck. "How much longer?"
"Not that much longer. Twenty minutes maybe?"
"I'm excited."
I grinned at that. "Me too, baby."
She nuzzled her nose against my skin, making my grin grow wider.
I pressed my hand to her cheek, holding her there. "I love you."
"Love you, too," she responded groggily.
Not too long after we were landing on the runway, Aubree's hand pried onto mine. I held hers back firmly.
There were surprisingly only a scattered amount of fans there at the airport when we arrived in Ireland, so we decided to take pictures with them all, both of us half-asleep.
It was only about ten at night, but Aubree and I were ready to crash.
I spotted my mum, waiting for us, and she ushered us into the car.
She squeezed Aubree so tight that I thought she was going to break in half, but Aubree was smiling and giggling, so I let her continue. Until it went on for two more minutes, my mother throwing compliments at her: how much she loved her eyes, and oh my gosh, her hair, she was so pretty, and cute, wow, so cute.
"Alright," I pried them apart, laughing myself.
Then my mum hugged me, telling me how much she missed me and how glad she was to see me. I returned all of them, meaning it, but being extremely tired and just wanting to fall asleep in the car.
Aubree and I shared the backseat, my mum tossing questions back at us from the driver's seat. Aubree politely answered each one, even though some were a bit too personal, and then I told my mum to stop, that she obviously wanted some sleep. Aubree insisted that it was fine, but my mother stopped talking and let us sleep.
We got back to the house in only about thirty minutes, no major traffic on the road at this time of night.
When we opened the front door, I was bombarded by all of my family members, and six month old Theo was thrown into my arms as they attacked Aubree with more hugs and more questions and more compliments.
I explained how tired we were, and I let my mum show us upstairs, telling Aubree where everything was: her room she'd be staying in, my room, the bathroom.
Aubree spoke up as my mum was about to go back downstairs, "Thank you... Mrs. Horan."
"Oh, dear, call me Maura."
She wrapped her in a motherly hug and kissed her head, embarrassing me. I stole Aubree from her and told my mother good night.
Not wanting to question my mum on why she told Aubree she'd be staying in a guest room instead of with me, we both just went in our seperate rooms, exhausted.
But I became the one that couldn't sleep without her. I wondered if she was sound asleep or wide awake.
Just as I stood out of bed to go check on her, she entered my room, a skinny little silhouette in my doorway.
I smiled, walking over to her and quickly picking her up before she could protest. She giggled as I threw her over my shoulder.
"Niall," she squealed.
I plopped her down on the bed, pulling the covers up around her body and kissing her good night. Then I went around the bed and tucked myself in, "Good night, princess."