The Executive & The Artist (H.S)

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* This chapter is choppy to reflect the feelings characters experience throughout it. It may be a bit confusing, so comment questions if you have them :)

NAT felt like she was going to puke.

Her knees were pulled up to her chest and the water she resided in had long since gone cold. The bathroom lights seemed harsher than usual - poking fun at the makeup gathering underneath her eyes, highlighting the pale of her skin. Someone was calling her mobile and she assumed it was Harry, assumed he was worried because she was supposed to ring him after coming from the clinic and instead she was getting hypothermia in his bathtub. Someone was calling her mobile and the last person she wanted it to be was Harry.

"That paint gives me headaches - stop being so selfish."

"It's your fault you left it on the table. You can always make another piece."

"I have to work, sorry. Can't make it to your recital."

Nat sniffed and buried her face in the crook formed between her two knees - the ones pressed together. Tears leaked out of her reddened eyes and she couldn't even feel them anymore. She felt his hands on her canvases, and his words cutting the skin of her arms and her legs and her back and her heart. She heard the sound of her mother arguing with him, and then the sound of wedding china shattering against the ground. She heard the sound of broken plates and broken cups and broken people.

Nat felt like she was going to puke.

It wasn't long before there were sobs. They crawled and clawed and pushed up her throat, tearing up the skin and it burned, burned, burned but that didn't stop her from screaming. She hadn't screamed in so long. It burned, burned, burned and it felt so good.

Someone should have warned her that the binding holding two people together had an expiration date.

Nat and Harry should've used super glue.

...

When Harry burst through the door, Nat's phone had accumulated approximately 13 calls and 36 texts, all spanning from him. His lungs hurt from all the rapid breathing that made them expand and contract at rates they hadn't before, and his hands were shaking so bad he could hardly fit the key in the ignition to speed to the flat.

He loved her.

"Natalie?" The Executive scanned the empty living room and quickly moved to the kitchen, taking in the bare space and muttering a panicked "shit." He checked their bedroom and the guest bedroom and the closet and the spare room he used for an office and she wasn't there. She wasn't there. "Nat, please. This isn't funny."

And then, when Harry's hands tugged on his hair and he started to breathe in short, gasping breaths, he heard a sob.

Quick, quiet.

A sob.

The master bathroom. How the fuck did he miss it?

Harry'd never moved so fast as he ripped the door open (he was so beyond knocking), and stopped dead in his tracks. Because his girlfriend was naked, face red and blotchy, standing in front of the mirror.

And her hands were wrapped around her stomach.

Harry's mouth went dry, eyes blinking because surely this was a dream. Surely this was a dream.

"Nat?"

She turned her head, choking on another cry. The Artist covered her mouth with her hand, hiding from him, putting a tarp over her canvas. The planes of her body looked harsh and not at all like they were catering to another human - they were harsh. Babies weren't harsh. Nat wasn't harsh. "Nat it's okay, it's okay."

His arms encircled her shoulders and it was like a dam broke - tears and crying and sobs and weak knees. They slouched to the floor, and they weren't okay.

But Harry was a businessman.

"It's okay, Nat. It's okay."

...

"Are you sure?"

Nat swallowed and nodded, gripping her mug with white knuckles and trembling fingers. She was crouched in her favourite position - her back against Harry's chest, his knees bracketing her hips. It used to be comforting but now it just reminded her that soon, there would be a toddler running around and they couldn't have the fireplace running and when they moved into a house (they needed a house, right?), they'd need a baby gate and they wouldn't be able to relax like this. Relax like sitting on the hardwood floor, leaning against the couch, watching the flames.

"It's okay, Nat. We'll be okay" he told her, bending down to kiss behind her ear and rub her arm with his cold palm. She didn't know why he was so freezing - she made him dress in joggers and one of his old school jumpers, one of those she usually stole for herself. They were sitting in front of a fire dressed in joggers and school jumpers and Harry was freezing. "My mum can help out. She's good at that stuff - helped with Bea a lot when she was a baby. She could help us out too? We'll be okay."

Harry was a businessman and they weren't okay.

Nat squeezed her eyes shut and started tapping her bare foot. Harry's hand came to cup her jogger-clad knee to try and calm her but she kept tapping, trying too hard not to cry. Because Harry was a businessman and they weren't okay and he was lying to her. They weren't okay - they were so far from okay.

"Bird, we're -"

"Please stop."

She was having trouble breathing. The breath wouldn't leave her lungs - air was getting in, but it wasn't escaping. She felt like she was drowning. She was drowning whilst sitting in front of a fire, fully clothed but feeling naked. She felt like she was drowning and Harry was a businessman who couldn't drop the curtain long enough to cater to Nat. He couldn't drop the curtain long enough to tell her the fucking truth and he was lying to her.

Nat stood, hand clutching at the space between her breasts and hoping Harry would tell her some truth for once in his life. Just once she wanted someone to tell her the truth.

"Just breathe" he whispered to her, hands on her shoulders and fingertips digging crescents into her skin. "In,out, Bird. In,out." She shook her head and started crying again - she never stopped crying anymore. Nat hoped her baby wasn't going to be as sad as her - what a tragedy that would be.

"T-tell me the truth" she pleaded, crowding against him because he was warm and tall and smart and funny and driven and everything she'd want her child to be. She just didn't want her child to be warm and tall and smart and funny and driven now.

"I am -" "-No you're not! We're not okay! I can't do this, Harry... I can't. I can't I can't I can't."

She bit into her thumb until her sobs stopped ripping through her, and thought his lips looked like that medicine you get for sore throats. So she shook her head and went up on tiptoes to connect their minds and their hearts and Harry's lips looked like medicine so Nat kissed him.

And Harry kissed her until his breath became hers, until her body stopped trembling against his. Harry kissed her until her tears were his tears and he loved her.

He loved her.