#so if any crafty people wanna make me a header i'd appreciate it

[ferryboatpeak]

When are you writing more for mpreg harry? I love it!

IT’S TIME, ANON! Thanks to you and to all the other anons who have kept this story moving, one ask after another, we have reached the conclusion of our tale. I have a couple more asks to get to for epilogue-type stuff (and would entertain more), but this is it, the final installment of the main not-fic. Here we goooooo…

the rest of the story: [parts 1-7] [part 8][part 9] [part 10]

Nick resolves to make more of an effort. Harry’s the one on the cusp of major experimental surgery, not to mention the baby that’s going to result, and Nick can manage to hang out and watch romcoms if it’s going to make Harry happy. Even if it’s going to make Nick miserable in the end. Insulating himself from the depths of his emotions means that their time together has a strain that it’s never had before – suddenly Nick can’t be himself around Harry, and it’s a loss he feels keenly. But he’s so intent on bracing himself against the hurt of being close to Harry (but not close enough) that he doesn’t notice that Harry’s also more guarded than usual, retreating inside himself with the suspicion that he’s being judged.

Nevertheless, Harry craves Nick’s company, and both of these exceptionally pleasant human beings can manage to pass the time together without too much awkwardness. So that’s what they’re doing one night in March, just after Harry’s pregnancy hits 37 weeks. Harry’s quieter than usual, and he keeps shifting uncomfortably on the sofa. When Nick asks, he says he’s feeling kind of queasy, and his back hurts. Anne immediately says to call the doctor, but Harry brushes it off: he’s uncomfortable all the time these days, it’s not a big deal.

“I think you should call,” Nick says, pausing the movie. Harry’s called the doctor about yoga poses and eating honey and boxing and multiple drafts of his birth plan, so what harm’s it going to do to call her now?  

Harry calls, curled up with his head on the arm of the sofa, gravity holding his phone to his ear. The doctor hears him out, asking a few questions. As Harry listens to what she has to say, his expression changes. “Oh,” Harry says. “I thought that…” He squirms into a sitting position, hand on his stomach. “Is it too soon?”

Across the room, Nick sees Anne tense up in her chair as well. “All right,” Harry says into the phone, “if you’re sure.” He tosses the phone onto the cushion next to him. “Well,” he announces to Nick and Anne, leaning forward and planting both feet on the floor. His knees are spread apart to accommodate his belly, bulging toward the edge of the sofa under the capital-lettered DAMN on the front of his hoodie. He smacks his his palms down onto his knees decisively. “I’m having a baby tonight.” The doctor says his symptoms sound an awful lot like labor, and so they’re going to rush him into surgery immediately.

Nick squashes down the panicky feeling in his chest. Not about me, he reminds himself. He knows false bravado when he sees it, and Harry doesn’t need to worry about Nick’s panic on top of his own. While Harry’s on the phone with Jeff, making arrangements for security and transportation, Nick fiddles with the laces of his shoes, tying and untying them as he tries to figure out the right way to say goodbye to somebody who’s off to have an unprecedented baby.

Giving up, he grabs his jacket. “Hold on,” Harry says into the phone, and then angles it away from his mouth to talk to Nick. “You’re leaving?” The question is uncertain, a strain in Harry’s voice.

Nick pauses, jacket halfway on. “Unless you…”

“Come with,” Harry says quickly.

Nick sits down. “Of course I will.”

At the hospital, Harry’s dark-windowed car pulls into a loading dock. The door rolls shut behind them, and they’re escorted through the back entrances and maintenance corridors of the facility. Harry’s pale and serious-looking, moving purposefully through the halls in the center of a tight knot of security and doctors. In the end, Nick doesn’t say anything at all, just squeezes Harry’s hand before he’s led away into the surgical suite and Nick and Anne are shown to a private waiting area.

They wait. Jeff joins them, and Gemma. Nick calls someone to pick up the dogs for the night. He finds a wall outlet; he’s got a phone charger in his bag, thank god. Jeff taps away at his laptop, and Anne tries to read a book but mostly ends up pacing.

It feels like hours and hours go by. Well after midnight, one of the doctors appears. His news is directed to Jeff (because Jeff’s the one who’s got permission to access all of Harry’s medical information under whatever the British version of HIPAA is). Blah blah blah some biology i’m not thinking about. In short, the procedure went well. Everybody exhales. Anne, the doctor says, Harry’d like you to come in and be with the baby while we finish stitching him up.

Anne dashes back with the doctor. Nick feels like he’s crossed into some kind of blank space. Harry’s not pregnant any more; that strange thing is over. No more risk, no more uncertainty. Healthy baby, healthy Harry. No more hospital vigil to keep, and now Nick has no idea what he’s supposed to do. He asks Jeff if he should go. Nah, Jeff says, he wanted you here, at least wait to see him, if you can.

They wait, and they wait. Nick’s starting to doze off on the hard hospital sofa when Anne comes out to tell them that Harry’s been moved to a room and is ready to see everyone. Quiet night with his baby, recovering from surgery? No, friends, this is Harry Styles, riding a wave of postpartum oxytocin, and he is JUBILANT. He is VICTORIOUS. He has GESTATED and BIRTHED an ENTIRE BABY with his VERY OWN BODY and he is ready to SHOW EVERYBODY and be VENERATED.

Harry’s sat up in his hospital bed, cradling a little burrito of a baby in an ill-fitting hospital hat and a flannel hospital-printed blanket. The hair falling out of his hair clip is stringy and his face is puffy and he’s completely radiant. Everyone crowds around the bed, craning their necks to get a peek at the little scrunched-up face, congratulating Harry and telling him she’s beautiful.

Gemma pulls a heavy vinyl-covered hospital chair up to the head of the bed and Harry hands the baby over to her. Jeff walks the perimeter of the room, gathering up the paperwork that’s lying around and erasing Harry’s name and the baby’s name from the whiteboard on the wall. Nick hovers in the background, not as purposeful as Jeff, while Gemma holds her niece and Harry giddily chatters about the gory medical details and the baby’s exceptional Apgar score and the first song he played for her.

(I feel that Harry puts a lot of thought into the first song he wants to cue up after the baby’s born, and I do not think that Sign of the Times would be the answer. I’m pretty sure it’s something involving Stevie Nicks.)

Nick leans a knee on the deep windowsill and presses his cheek to the cold glass, looking out at quiet London in the still hours of the morning. By the time he gets home, it’ll be almost his old wake-up hour. Getting a couple hours of sleep before heading to work is going to feel like he’s back to his Breakfast Show routine. At least he’s not headed there straight from the hospital. Straight through crew, Nick thinks, turning back to the room to contrast teenage Harry with the older, postpartum version in front of him.

Gemma stands up with the baby. “Nick, want a turn?”

“Of course.” She gently transfers the baby to him, and he takes her place in the bedside chair. For a moment, it’s only Nick and Harry smiling at each other as the baby sleeps in Nick’s arms.

It occurs to Harry that this is nice. Really nice. Awash in oxytocin and empowerment, he’s completely confident that having a baby is the best thing he’s ever done (the best thing that ANYBODY has ever done, EVER). And Nick’s looking down at his baby so tenderly, and that makes it all even better. “Not so bad, is it?” he asks Nick, a little smugly, gesturing at the space that holds Nick and the baby and himself.

Nick, who’s just been wondering if he can get away with kissing the baby’s forehead, is completely confused. “Why would it be bad?”

You didn’t like the surrogate thing, Harry says, but this isn’t terrible, right?

“Oh my god.��� It takes him a second to put it together, that Harry’s assumed he didn’t like the rumors because he didn’t want to be linked to Harry and the baby. Not because it’s been 13 weeks of Twitter and the tabs and everyone he knows blithely joking about Nick’s innermost feelings. Nick swallows hard and opens his eyes wide, to dry them out. “Please, don’t ever think I don’t want this.”

Because he’s still trying to expose his eyeballs to as much air as possible, he’s got to keep looking at Harry as Harry’s expression shifts from bemusement to relief to something else. Jeff must have some kind of sixth sense for Harry’s eyes welling up; in Nick’s peripheral vision he can see him nudging Anne and Gemma out of the room. The door closes behind the three of them.

Nick apologizes, and Harry sniffles a little and wipes his eye on the corner of the thin hospital sheet, and finally asks, well, if you weren’t trying to get clear of the rumors, then why were you being so weird?

“It’s just hard,” Nick says, and apologizes again, because he’s sorry to lay all of this on Harry right now, but he’s got to make sure that Harry knows he’s not mad at him. “And none of this is your problem,” he starts. The baby’s impossibly light and warm in the crook of his elbow. “I’m just… jealous.”

It’s the right word, the one that unlocks all of it. “I’m jealous of the other… the other parent, whoever it is…” – Harry opens his mouth, but Nick talks over him – “whoever it is now, or whoever it will be. I’m jealous of you for having a baby out of nowhere when it’s never going to be that easy for me.” Nick’s picking up speed now, needing to get it all out before Harry’s family comes back in. “I’m jealous of her…” – Nick nods his head down at the baby– “…for belonging to you…” …when I don’t, he thinks but doesn’t say. He takes a deep breath. “I’m jealous of both of you for being a family I’m not part of.”

Harry’s face crumples, and Nick does the only thing he can think of to cheer him up, which is to hand the baby back to him. He apologizes again, and tells Harry that this doesn’t change anything, he’s still going to be here for him, it doesn’t have to tank their friendship. Harry’s speechless and teary-eyed, clutching the baby with both arms. Nick keeps talking into the silence. Unless you want… I get it if you’re not comfortable… well, I can go, it’s probably just better if I go, all right? The chair screeches against the floor as he scoots back from the bed.

Pieces are falling into place for Harry. The glow he felt back at the beginning, when this was just a joke, and Nick would pat his belly and ask how the baby’s doing. Nick finding him scared and confused on the floor of the bathroom, Nick taking him to his first doctor’s appointment. Nick poking at the baby. Nick picking him up at an icy service station in the middle of the night. The sinking awfulness of the suspicion that Nick was pulling away. His instinctive request for Nick to come with him to the hospital. Nick’s the person he’s wanted with him, all along.

Nick’s walking toward the door when Harry finally says something. “You want this?” he asks, voice cracking, pointing with his chin to his baby, to his body, to everything.

“So much,” Nick says, leaning his shaking hands on the plastic frame at the end of the bed. “So much.”

“Okay,” Harry says, smiling. He ducks his head to ineffectually wipe the side of his face on the polyester shoulder of his hospital gown. “Okay, yeah.”

Nick walks slowly back to the head of the bed, and offers Harry a tissue from the box on the side table. Harry carefully shifts the baby’s weight onto one arm so he can take it and wipe his eyes and blow his nose. He pats the mattress next to him. “Can you fit?”

Nick can’t, not really, but he squeezes onto the bed anyway, one leg stretched out next to Harry’s and the other braced on the floor. He puts one arm around Harry and the other around the baby, still sleeping in the crook of Harry’s elbow undisturbed by the momentous developments around her. Nick kisses Harry’s temple and Harry turns his head to kiss him properly, and part of the joy of not actually writing this fic means that I don’t have to think of a perfect ending sentence, so I’m just going to leave you here, with Nick and Harry kissing while the baby sleeps in their arms. THE END.