Somewhere In Between // Niall Horan

Chapter 16: How Time Wears On

❝ It is quite impossible to say how time does wear on in the Neverland. ❞

~~~

February 20, 2013 

England 

     The date was February 20, 2013.  The day after the combination EC1DLK was awakened, and the day that the biggest, most influential boyband would finally be whole again.

    Niall was excited and rightfully so.  Who wouldn’t miss their best mates after two weeks without seeing them?  Moreover, who wouldn’t miss their bandmates after two weeks in a coma?  Of course not Niall.  And it wasn’t just he who was excited for the reunion of the five lads.  The entire world was waiting, waiting on pins and needles for One Direction to get on its feet again and continue their quest for world domination.  The news had leaked that Niall was finally awake, and the commotion that it caused was something Niall didn’t miss.  Paparazzi and newspaper reporters and hysteric fangirls were pushing and shoving outside the hospital doors.  The London police stood guard, but they were having difficulty keeping everyone out.  The screams, clicks of the camera, everything was audible from his room even with the window closed and the curtains drawn.  Everyone was fighting to get in and see Niall Horan for themselves, like he was an animal on display at the London Zoo.  Didn’t anybody have any consideration for his well-being?  He had just woken up from a two-week coma, for fuck’s sake.  It was early, too, and the hospital wasn’t empty.  Other people were still being treated, and Niall felt partly responsible for the disturbance outside that woke everybody up.  The desperate crowd was so hungry for details and first glimpses that they would wait outside a hospital at seven o’clock in the morning, brave the freezing English weather, and bother all the other patients inside.

    The suffocation was closing in again.  Niall took deep, steady breaths and unclenched the fists he had unknowingly made.  This is what he signed up for.  This is what he prepared himself for.  He was okay.  He was okay.

    Once his heart rate slowed to a more normal pace, he returned his attention to the pitiful breakfast on his lap: a piece of toast that was so stale he was worried one bite would ruin his braces, yogurt that tasted weeks old, and a cup of lukewarm tea which was the only thing on the tray that appealed to him.  Niall took a sip of the tangy tea.  Ah, it was nice to be in London again.  He couldn’t wait to see his family, but until they were able to fly out of Ireland, he’d settle for his second home here in London with his other family.

     Three gentle knocks sounded at the door.  “Niall?”  The same nurse from the night before, Mrs. Connelly, poked her head inside.  “Niall, you have some visitors who’d like to see you.”

   He quickly set down the tea cup, accidentally sloshing some liquid onto the breakfast tray.  “They’re here already?”

   “Arrived just a few minutes ago.  We had to smuggle them in through the back in case a riot started outside.  The poor police, they’ve got enough to handle with all those hooligans trying to get in.  People these days are just so rude, aren’t they?”

   “Sorry ‘bout that, ma’am.”

   “Oh, no matter,” she assured him.  “Would you like me to send them in now or after you finish breakfast?”