Missing [ST]

Fifty Three

A/N: Hi! Little recap because I haven't uploaded for a while: Individual farewells were said, the guys are going back to America, and Steven and Leah almost kissed because I'm evil and enjoy making you wait for a plot you're probably bored of! And now (unfortunately) you get some filler chapters because there's nothing more exciting, right?!

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"Are you fucking serious, Leah!?"

It was horrible.

Gone eight on a Monday evening after an exceptionally exhausting day that had drained Leah from everything- herself and her feelings- and it wasn't even over.

Watching the pain in her father's eyes swamp with flaming anger that kept his voice raised. To sit at the dinner table across from her muted mother because she hadn't uttered a word in forever, whilst feeling sick from the first appraisable meal that she wished she never had eaten.

It was her choice to tell her particular line of events because there was nothing holding her back anymore; there was no reason to delay it, no excuse to find, but she didn't quite prepare herself for the extent of the reactions.

Because when the questions bombarded her and stole her already fragile line of thought, and the accusations of disbelief blurted out in shock and horror, the peaceful explanation in her head drastically submerged under the fractures that barely held her family together.

"Please, stop shouting," Leah begged timidly, feeling smaller and smaller in her chair. Her nails were digging into her palms in her lap, but she couldn't feel the scratch anymore. The sight of her plate unsettled her stomach, but it was a lot more manageable than her father's jarring tone.

"HOW? How? I cannot- And I LET you go back there? T-To...them?"

The tears were brewing. She could feel them. Her chin dipped down, a curtain of hair fell past her face, but she refused to sit in silence and be wronged.

"Dad, they're good people. I-I've told you, they helped me and I-"

"Leah, no. NO! They kidnapped you! How can you forget that?"

Vision blurring, throat thick with unshed tears, Leah looked up.

Vexed at the head of the table. Fists pushed into the surface to tense his shoulders. Louis was still in his work clothes, minus the tie, and his shirt was pulled messily over his elbows so the cuffs were no longer pinned in place.

She had never seen her dad like this ever.

"Y-You don't..."

But her voice had faltered pathetically, and her attempt was like a clamp to a vice that made him snap.

The cutlery jumped and clattered. The glass by his fist was swiped in a viscous arc and shattered on the floor. His chair fell backwards. There was so much noise in one second, so much in a burst of outrage, that it was impossible for the tears not to fall and streak burning paths down her cheeks.

"They HURT you. TOOK you from us-your family! Your HOME, your life and you wanted to say goodbye!?"

Leah couldn't look at him any longer; his standing presence had become too powerful.

She felt so small and lost that she was practically pleading to be anywhere else. To go back in time so none of it happened, so she could live in oblivion and find out about her family crisis another way. Anything, so she didn't have to mourn over her brother- so she didn't have to meet them, and she didn't have to meet Steven.

"Calm down, Louis." It was firm and exasperated. "Look at what you're doing to our daughter."

The awaited intervention may have saved Leah from being caught up in the past, but it cruelly brought her back to her kitchen-diner where her mum hovered next to her with a soothing hand resting on shoulder. Trying to comfort, but just making her whimper a little more with a physical touch.