Always You |harry styles| - completed

FIFTY-ONE

Norah Jones: Lonestar

"What was it like?", Gemma came over a couple of days after we got released from the hospital. To say that Harry and I both looked like roadkill would be an understatement. Kaya wasn't one of those babies that slept through the night straight away... I think most babies aren't like that even though every parent hopes theirs will be the exception.

"You mean birth?", she nodded. It was incredible to have people lovely enough to do our shop for us and bring over the largest coffees they could find in London. Harry went to grab a shower and Gem and I sat on the couch while Kaya slept in the MamaRoo swing. A literal life-saver, that one.

"Painful. Weird. Uncomfortable. But it wasn't terrible enough to put me off from having more kids in the future. The distant future, I mean. You honestly forget every horrible bit the moment they hand you that babe for the first time. You start cursing your life when you get home and the realization that you have no idea what you're doing suddenly hits.", I looked over at Kaya as she slept so peacefully and internally scolded myself for letting her sleep during the day. In the end, it was a moment of quiet that I wouldn't dare mess with.

"But you're doing great! I mean, she's still alive.", we laughed, "That went from zero to a hundred real quick Gemma.".

The first night we spent out of the hospital would probably haunt me for the rest of my life. We were clueless and kept staring at her while she slept. Idiots. We should've cherished the free time, loosely put. When she started crying we were just so happy that we could immediately try calming her down. The rocking and Harry's soft humming worked for a whole of five minutes; she was probably the only girl in the world that hysterically cried when Harry sang. Well, on second thought... but a different type of hysterical cry. Moral of the story: we've not slept since. The baby stirred when Harry stepped on one of the creaky stairs a bit too hard. He knew he messed up and went to pick her up when her piercing cries almost shattered the windows.

"I'll honor, teacup... don't worry.", Gemma raised her eyebrow at her brother.

"We made a deal that the one that wakes her up has to calm her down, otherwise it would feel like a game of hot potato.", she nodded after realizing our little arrangement actually made sense. My phone pinged and I just about shit my pants at the thought of having to be the guilty party in waking her up, but she brushed the sound off. 'I'm at your door. Didn't want to ring the bell, don't know if the baby is asleep. Let me in, pls. x', Niall's text said.

"Hey man! Come on in! Harry woke her up about ten minutes ago by not watching his step and creating noise, so no worries.", the Irish uncle (his words, not mine) walked in and literally lost it when he saw Harry rocking Kaya in his arms.

"Mate come 'ere.", the sight before me was one for the books... two grown men swooning over a little loaf of bread with hazel eyes and the tiniest nose imaginable.

"She's a beaut you guys!", he whispered. Harry kept rocking her to sleep and Niall unpacked the chicken he brought for lunch. He was very happy I was no longer sick at the smell of Nando's.

"Is she asleep? Have you done the leg thing?", both of our guests turned their attention towards Harry when I mentioned 'the leg thing'. He lifted her leg up and it fell straight down. Asleep, at last.

"Would one of you explain, please?", Gemma found out new-parent routine riveting.

"You see, the way to check if she's really asleep is to lift her leg up and if it falls right back down that means she's out for the count and you can set her down. If she stirs then it means she'll start crying when you put her in her cot. Simple, but effective.", both of them almost keeled over from laughter and Harry and I joined in on the fun, because we realized how strange it must've sounded and looked.

After they left we got about an hour of sleep before Kaya woke up for her next feed. Our life suddenly became an amateur mix of changing dirty nappies, trying to breastfeed which would usually end in failure and in Harry fixing a bottle of formula, laughing at each other when we'd catch ourselves bringing our ear close to her chest to see if she was breathing and more wannabe adult activities. We both loved her to pieces and wouldn't trade what we had for any glamour the world could offer, but we were kind of lost in a limbo of going from two young people in love to sleep deprived parents that have not kissed in over a week.

"We survived another day teacup.", the baby lay in her bassinet by the bed and Harry and I finally got a few cuddles in.

"We live to see another day, Styles. We got this. We're practically pros already.", neither of us could hold in our laughter much longer so we started creating weird laughing noises... the ones you make in situations when it's forbidden to laugh but you're bursting at the seams.

"This is the first moment in a week I've been this close to your face and that didn't involve handing you the baby or grabbing an empty formula bottle from your hands. What a luxury.", the best we could both do was hope that our life doesn't remain like this forever.

The next two months were pretty much the same, only we got a bit more experienced in figuring out what each sound coming from Kaya meant. She giggled for the first time and Harry luckily caught it on video. If he didn't have Kaya in his hands then all of his attention was directed at his phone screen, the music room and Jeff or the label. I had no idea what was going on with his work and since he didn't tell me willingly – I didn't ask. He took Kaya for a walk once and photos of him pushing a buggy appeared on every magazine cover and all over Twitter, which was something we prepared for. I think him making a statement after she was born, saying that we wouldn't share her picture and we thanked everyone for respecting our privacy and boundaries, helped a lot.

My problem with this new situation wasn't that Harry had work to do, but rather that he chose to lock me out. I didn't know where his heart was, which was highly unusual for him and very out of character. It felt like roles were suddenly reversed and I dreaded the day we'd have a rerun of Portugal... because it was just a matter of time. Only now, I'd be the one begging him to tell me anything, to give me some sort of confirmation we were still on the same page about life. 

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A/N: it's a short one, I know... but we're coming close to the end of this story. Also, listen to the song, it's one of my favorites (in fact, the entire Come Away With Me album is amazing). Back to this chapter - it smells like trouble in paradise, don't you think? 

Thanks for your messages and comments after I shared the earthquake story. I'm still shaken up and I have trouble sleeping, but I'm much better than I was two days ago. Lots of love!

TWPK, always.

T.