Wedlock - Harry Styles A.U

thirty six

ONE WEEK LATER (25 WEEKS PREGNANT)

Harry

"Wow. You're here too."

Aracely's eyes scan me up and down, a small smile curling up onto her lips. I hold my hands up in defence.

"Wasn't by choice...I wasn't even given a choice." I mumble and it's true.

We've just been to Edora's twenty five week scan and it was mostly good news. She's coming to the end of the second trimester and all in all, she looks healthy and so is baby. The only bad thing is that because of her condition, the midwife has suggested 'bed rest' starting now until the birth in hopes of carrying to full term. She's calling it bed rest but it's mostly just limiting any form of exercise, stress, doing anything that she doesn't have to do and she's not very happy about it.

In good news though, the midwife wanted to check to see if her placenta is still low and although it is, she told us it has moved a little higher from the last scan. She's hoping that if she is able to carry to full term or at least to thirty eight weeks, the placenta will be placed correctly which opens up Edora's chances at a natural birth like she wants. Obviously, that's only if she can carry to term but it's still a win.

I was supposed to be just dropping Edora, Lula and Albie off and go back to work but Edora was soon begging me to just say hi and then Lula made a pretty convincing case, one that I couldn't say no to. She had knocked on the front door with Albie, the carers opening the door and greeting everyone. Her new friend had soon ran out to say hello and she was instantly dragging him over to me.

"This is my daddy." Lula announced to her friend and began to pull me towards the house. "He can play in the garden with us!"

I slowly walked with her as she dragged me along, smiling to myself as she continued to talk about me with so much pride.

"Daddy is very good at tea parties and he makes me laugh. He gives really good cuddles and kisses a-and," She forgot to stop talking to breathe so sucked in the deepest breath to keep talking. "I love my daddy. Do you love yours?"

I watched as the little boy beside Lula frowned and shook his head.

"I don't know where my daddy is."

Lula looked confused for a few short moments before she shrugged her shoulders and gave the little boy a big smile.

"That's okay! I share my daddy with you." She proudly said before she looked up at me with a cheeky smile. "I sharing you, daddy." She told me and pointed to her chest. "I'm a good girl."

"Yes you are, Lovebug. Are you going to go and play?"

"Uhhh." She looked at her friend, then at Aracely who stood at the door, at Edora then back at me. "You come and play too?"

That, matched with Albie's begging and excited eyes had me unable to say no.

I've told them I'm only staying for five minutes and I do intend to keep it that way.

What I just said doesn't seem to click in Aracely's head so she just keeps smiling and uses her crutch to push the door open a little wider, essentially welcoming us into her new foster home - a group home.

We had spent the whole day and night with Aracely and Luca at the hospital that day. It was exhausting but neither of us had it in us to leave. Aracely ended up having to have surgery on her leg as the break was pretty severe so we sat around with Luca for six hours as his injuries were being tended to and as he was questioned by the police about everything that had happened.

Turns out, they had ran away from their foster home three days prior. I was quite surprised that they had managed to survive that long. They were sleeping on the streets with thin blankets, begging for food and washing in public bathrooms. Apparently they left to look for their birth mum, we don't know anymore than that. Edora had fought for them to be placed back in a group foster home instead of sending them back to a place they were clearly unhappy with and with a bit of cash from my wallet, they were easily persuaded.