A Touch of Cinnamon ✓

t h i r t y - f i v e | a family

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HS

"You're not serious."

"I am."

"Harold, please tell me you are not being serious right now!"

"Liam, I am!"

"Haz, please, work with me here! You're just shitting me, right? You're not being serious, and you're just pulling one over on me?" Liam is so desperate and as funny as Harry finds it, it's starting to annoy him.

"I'm being completely serious. This is not some elaborate attempt to prank you, this is really happening."

"You've only been together, what, six months?"

"Somewhere around there, yeah."

"So why do you have to do this now?"

"Because, we have to save Louisa."

"Save her? From what?" Liam looks ready to pull his hair out of his head because he isn't getting it, and the fact that he isn't getting it makes Harry want to shut him up for two seconds so he can just listen for once.

"From being in foster care. Lilly can't keep taking care of her, it's wearing her down," Harry begins, but Liam interrupts him. Again.

"Why do you have to save her from foster care?"

"Oh my god will you just shut up for two seconds so I can answer all your fucking questions before you even ask them?" Harry snaps, Liam's mouth clamping shut immediately, his lips in a thin line, "Thank you. As I was saying, we have to save Louisa from being put into foster care. Lilly never wanted to be a mother, and there's no one else that can be a parent to her. My mother has her right now, but she can't keep her forever.

"So, Niall and I have to get married so we can adopt her. If we can spare this child, who has just turned seven, mind you, of a future in foster care, and then risking her ending up on the street and in the same life both her mother and her mother's best friend were in, then we're going to do it.

"Niall is killing himself with guilt over Charlotte dying. She saved his life by jumping in front of that gun, but she died in the process. He's been up at night, restless, he's having trouble eating, he's zoning out during conversations, and he hasn't been able to forgive himself yet.

"This is how he repays her. This is how he makes Charlotte's death as okay as it can be. If he can keep this girl from ending up a prostitute in the future, just like he and Charlotte were, then he's going to do whatever it takes.

"I'm just going to help him with it. This is what we have to do, Li. I understand if you don't agree with it, or even like it, but it's happening. And I'd really like for you to just see it from our side of things," Harry finishes, straightening his tie. Liam is sitting on his bed, hands clasped as he rests his elbows on his knees and tries to connect the pieces in his mind.

"But why do you have to get married now?"

"It makes it look better to the government, or whatever. Would you want two men adopting a young girl if the two men weren't married? It would make us look like paedophiles, and we could lose her forever if that were to happen," Liam's head tilts as he thinks about it.