Single Father (Ziall Horlik) AU

Chapter 24

Niall's POV

The second Zayn left the flat for work, I felt an overwhelming feeling of mixed emotions. I felt like I wanted to go tell him to take the day off so we can enjoy each other, but I also felt scared and an extreme amount of love for him. As for where the fear was coming from, I didn't really know. Maybe it was just my super clingy self wanting more than anything to know he would be okay. Whatever it was a brushed it off and took Laila with me to get her crazy curly hair fixed up a little bit.

"You know how much I love you?" I asked her once I had her on the changing table. She made soft sounds that I liked to pretend was her agreeing that she knew how much I loved her. I found a tiny white bow to put in her hair and used the little spray bottle we have and a comb to fix up her mess of black curls. Once I was done I looked at her and made the decision that she was the prettiest baby in this whole entire world. The door bell rang, making Laila laugh. I laughed at her and carried her with me.

"You think doorbells are funny?" I asked her once we got to the door. I opened it and found Harry waiting on the other side. That kind of surprised me because I assumed he would have already been at the shelter by now. He must have seen the look on my face and huffed.

"There's some type of riot or protest thing at a building a few blocks away. The police shut down anything in the area, including the shelter. Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to go get lunch today or hang out. Liam is busy trying to feed the people from his car with the emergency meals we made. My mum and sister are there too so I wasn't needed." He said. I looked over at the clock and saw I needed to get going to Laila's doctor appointment then get all the shopping done. That included groceries as well as some baby things.

"Laila has a check up in a bit, but once we're done there you can meet up with us for lunch and some shopping and other domestically fun things." I laughed to him. My green eyed friend agreed that I should text him when and where we should meet before he went back to his flat across the hall.

I continued on with my morning by making a grocery list of things we would need while Laila sat in her bouncer seat and sucked her thumb. I also cleaned the flat so it was more put together than it was before and packed up a diaper bag so Laila and I could enjoy our day out together. I looked up at the clock and saw it was thirty minutes until Laila's appointment so I got her in her carrier to leave the flat.

In at way, this felt so different than any other time we had both gone places together. It felt a little lonely. I kind of wished Zayn would have been able to come with us, but I knew he had a really big meeting today that he couldn't miss. However, I also felt happy because this was a really big deal for me to do as Laila's father.

Even if Zayn says I'm her dad and I feel like the title is correct, there are definitely still times where Zayn feels like he has to do everything on his own. Like waking up in the morning when Laila is hungry or if she needs a diaper change. He could be busy in the middle of something and I could literally be sitting there watching football and he gets up to go change her. I never say anything about it because I can only imagine what it must have been like for him to take on this job as a parent completely unexpected then go to having all the help in the world. It must be hard, but when he does ask me to help him with things I can't even contain how happy it makes me.

When we got to the doctor office, I took her right into the building and begin to fill out some paperwork. I was glad that there wasn't any problems with me not technically being her legal adopted father or guardian. I wouldn't know how to deal with that because Zayn said he took care of it for me. Once I finished filling it out, I took it back to the front then sat there waiting. I got a little bored and took a picture of Laila and sent it right to Zayn. I was sure I wouldn't hear from him because he was in his meeting, but he would check his phone soon and see our little girl.