The Assistant // Louis Tomlinson

Epilogue

18

«5 Years Later»

"Please tell me you're kidding." I stare at Harry with wide eyes.

"Come on! It's adorable!" he cries. Hunter just sits in his lap giggling at his dad's weirdness.

"I don't know..." He's trying to convince me that Hunt should go as him for Halloween this year. He's four now, so Harry is all excited his son is finally old enough to really participate in Halloween. The last three years, he didn't seem too into it. Although he did have a good time with his Uncle Mikey spray painting his hair neon green to go with his Ninja Turtle costume last year.

"Well I think it'll be adorable," Hailee says, appearing through the kitchen door and coming to kiss her son's chubby cheek. "We can get him one of those shirts that has all of your tattoos on it and wrap a bandana around his head."

"Ugh, fine that would be pretty freaking adorable," I succumb.

"Told ya." Harry has his smug look he gets when he convinces himself he's the most clever being to ever walk to the planet.

"Yeah, whatever," I grumble, looking down at my freshly manicured nails Hails and I had gone out to get done yesterday, for our own little celebration.

"Hey babe! Can you give me a hand?!" Louis' voice calls out from the front door. I stand up from my seat and hurry to the entrance. We bought this house a few months ago when we started talking about the prospect of marriage. I mean, we have been together for almost six years and already almost had a child together.

After my miscarriage, things were touch and go for a little while. No one has heard from or seen Brad since then, which made things easier than they could have been. We never made the pregnancy public so we didn't have to deal with the fans, figuring we would just tell people if and when we got pregnant again, but they did pick up on Louis' lack of spirit in the few months following. About a month into the whole ordeal, a fan photographed a little breakdown Louis had on stage one time in the middle of Half a Heart. They played it off well enough, hoping no one would notice why Niall took over Louis' parts. But one of the fans took a picture of him tear-stricken, hiding off to the side of the stage.

#CHEERUPLOUIS was trending worldwide on Twitter for the next forty-eight hours, among others like #LouisBreakdown and #TheOtherHalfOfLouisHeart. There were so many edits of things like wanted posters, claiming the other half of Louis' heart was missing, desperate to know where his broken heart went. It took a good six months before we could look at each other without a tinge of sadness or guilt that losing our baby left us with. We never gave up, though. Many times, a loss like that becomes an unbearable element in a relationship and inevitably is too much for them to handle. But we refused to be torn apart. We promised each other that even if we did end up splitting eventually, it wouldn't be because of that. But knowing it would still be hard, we decided we would give it at least a year before we reconsidered how much of a scar it left on our relationship. A year later, we came back to it and found we would indeed be able to move on from the whole ordeal. Of course it will always be painful and hard to deal with at times, but going through that together ended up strengthening the both of us.

We were never the unsure insecure couple, after that. We knew who we were with each other and a feeling of safety came with sticking by someone through a tragedy like that. We proved how much we cared and how dedicated we were so we could just be ourselves and comfortable in the relationship.

Spending almost every hour of our lives together didn't hurt much either, seeing as I was still touring with the boys. The difference was that I had fulfilled my role as the assistant; I'd done my time and finished all I needed to accomplish--professionally and personally. It gave me a chance to settle things in my life I needed to and figure things out for myself and the people in my life. I had accomplished what I needed to, and I was their official head stylist now, after Caroline decided to downgrade to a less demanding job when Brooklyn began kindergarten. Being together all the time did mean getting on each other's nerves, but we were good about figuring out how to just step back and take a break when we needed one.