off the record - ten (Patreon)

Pregnant after a one-night stand with Harry Styles, Y/N assumes they have gone their separate ways until a high-stakes photoshoot forces them back together.

A/N: I don’t know why it took me so long to post this update, but at last here it is! Let me know if you liked it!

word count: 10k

Y/N stared down at Harry, who was still sitting on the carpet at her feet, one large hand resting reverently on the massive curve of her stomach, his cheek still pressed against the soft cotton of his old tour shirt. The morning light coming through the windows was pale and gentle, turning the freshly painted sage green wall into something almost dreamlike. It made the half-built crib, the scattered screws, the piles of cardboard, and the smudge of paint on Harry’s cheek look less like chaos and more like the beginning of something sacred.

For months, everything had felt temporary.

Hotel rooms. Tour buses. Security routes. Back doors. Service lifts. Different countries, different beds, different versions of themselves depending on who was watching.

But this room was permanent.

The thought hit her so suddenly and violently that she had to blink back tears.

Harry noticed instantly, because of course he did. He lifted his head from her stomach, his brows pulling together with immediate concern.

“Hey,” he said softly, his voice still low and sleep-rough. “What is it? Did I say something wrong?”

Y/N shook her head quickly, reaching down to cup his paint-smeared face in both hands. She brushed her thumb beneath his eye, catching the tiny fleck of dried green paint that was clinging to his lower lashes.

“No,” she whispered. “No. You said exactly the right thing.”

Harry’s expression softened, but the worry did not leave completely. He leaned into her touch like a cat seeking warmth, closing his eyes for a second as her fingers threaded through the messy curls at his temples.

“It just feels real,” she admitted, her voice trembling. “All of it. The room. The crib. The fact that in a few weeks, there is going to be a tiny person sleeping in here who belongs to us.”

Harry opened his eyes. The green of them was impossibly clear in the soft light.

“She already belongs to us,” he murmured, his hand moving in a slow circle over her stomach. “She has been terrorizing your ribs for weeks. That is very much family behavior.”

Y/N let out a wet little laugh, swiping at her cheek with the sleeve of the oversized shirt. “She gets that from you.”

“Rude,” Harry gasped, his mouth falling open in theatrical offense. “I have never terrorized a rib in my life.”

“You literally elbow me in your sleep every night.”

“That is not terrorism. That is affection with poor spatial awareness.”

Y/N laughed properly then, the sound filling the unfinished nursery and making Harry’s face break into a bright, relieved smile. He pushed himself up from the floor with a dramatic groan, one hand braced on his knee like a man twice his age.

“Right,” he announced, clapping his hands together once and looking back at the wooden planks scattered across the carpet. “Emotional moment over. We have a bed to build, and I refuse to let our daughter arrive into this world thinking her father can’t handle tools.”

Y/N looked down at the instruction manual on the floor. “Harry, you put one of the side panels on backwards.”

Harry froze.

He looked at the crib.

He looked at the manual.

Then he looked back at her, blinking slowly. “Did I?”

“Yes.”

There was a long silence.

“Are you sure?”

“Very.”

Harry exhaled through his nose, turning toward the crib with a deeply wounded expression. “This is sabotage.”

“It is flat-packed furniture.”

“It is psychological warfare,” he argued, dropping to his knees again and grabbing the instruction manual. “Look at this drawing. What is that? That is not a screw. That is a hieroglyph.”

Y/N leaned back in the chair, one hand on her stomach, watching him glare at the manual like it had personally insulted his ability to provide for his family. He looked ridiculous and beautiful. His overalls were hanging low on his hips, one strap still dangling uselessly down his back, his hair was slipping down over one eyebrow , and he had somehow acquired another smear of paint along the sharp line of his jaw.

He looked nothing like the man who had commanded a hundred thousand people in Italy two weeks ago.

He looked like a father.

Her heart clenched.

“Give me the manual,” she said gently.

Harry looked up immediately. “Absolutely not. You are not doing physical labor.”

“I am reading.”

“Reading is labor.”

“Harry.”

“You are thirty-four weeks pregnant.”

“And still literate, surprisingly.”

His mouth twitched.

Y/N held out her hand. “Give me the manual, Styles.”

Harry stared at her for a second longer, then handed it over with great reluctance, like he was surrendering a national treasure.

For the next hour, they worked together in the soft morning light.

Or rather, Y/N sat in the wooden chair in the middle of the nursery, wrapped in Harry’s cardigan with the manual resting on top of her bump like a little table, calmly reading out instructions while Harry crawled around on the carpet, muttering under his breath and dramatically accusing every screw of being too small.

“Slot panel B into panel D,” Y/N read, squinting at the diagram.

Harry held up two nearly identical pieces of oak. “Which one is B?”

“The one with the three holes.”

“They both have three holes.”

Y/N leaned forward as much as her stomach allowed. “The other three holes.”

Harry stared at the wood. “That is not a real instruction.”

“It is literally the instruction.”

“This baby is going to be sleeping in a Moses basket until university,” Harry declared, flopping dramatically onto his back on the carpet.

Y/N laughed so hard that the baby shifted sharply beneath her ribs. She gasped, her hand flying to her stomach.

Harry shot upright instantly. “What? What happened? Are you alright?”

“She kicked,” Y/N breathed, wincing through a smile. “Hard. I think she agrees that you are being dramatic.”

Harry’s panic melted immediately into wonder. He shuffled across the carpet on his knees, settling between her legs and placing both hands gently over the spot where the movement had happened.

“Hi,” he whispered, all the comedy draining out of his voice. “Are you laughing at me in there? That is very rude, sweetheart. I am trying my absolute best.”

The baby kicked again, right beneath his palm.

Harry’s entire face changed.

It happened every time. It did not matter how many times he had felt her move. Every single kick still struck him with the same devastating force. His mouth parted slightly, his eyes going glassy, his breath catching in his throat as if the movement had reached directly inside his chest and squeezed his heart.

“There she is,” he whispered.

Y/N watched him, her own throat tightening.

“She knows your voice,” she said softly.

Harry looked up at her, his eyes shining. “You think?”

“I know.”

He swallowed hard, then leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the curve of her stomach. “Good. Because I have a lot to say to her.”

“Poor thing.”

Harry smiled against the fabric. “She loves my rambling.”

“She has no choice. She is trapped.”

“She is my captive audience,” he agreed proudly, sitting back on his heels. “Finally. Someone who has to listen to all my thoughts about vintage furniture and Fleetwood Mac.”

Y/N reached down, brushing a curl away from his forehead. “Speaking of Fleetwood Mac...”

Harry’s eyes lifted to hers.

Harry noticed the shift in her expression instantly. He went still.

“What?” he asked quietly.

Y/N rubbed a slow circle over her stomach, suddenly nervous. “Do you still like it?”

“Like what?”

“The name.”

Harry blinked once.

Then understanding moved across his face, gentle and bright.

“Stevie,” he breathed.

Y/N nodded, her eyes searching his. “I know we said it as a joke at first. And we don’t have to. We can still keep looking. But every time I think about her, that is the name that comes up in my head.”

Harry did not answer immediately.

He looked down at her stomach, his hands still resting on either side of it. For once, he seemed completely speechless.

“Harry?” Y/N whispered.

He let out a shaky laugh, dragging one hand over his mouth. “Sorry. I’m just... I’m trying very hard not to cry over a baby name while wearing paint-covered overalls.”

Y/N’s face crumpled into a smile. “You like it?”

“I love it,” he said instantly, fiercely. “I love it so much.”

His voice broke on the last word.

Y/N reached for him, and Harry moved immediately, rising onto his knees so he could wrap his arms around her as much as the bump would allow. He buried his face against the side of her stomach, holding her carefully, reverently.

“Stevie,” he whispered again, as if testing the shape of it against her skin. “Hello, Stevie.”

The baby shifted beneath his cheek.

Harry laughed wetly. “She likes it.”

“She is either approving or trying to kick your face away.”

“Approval,” Harry decided firmly. “Definitely approval.”

By lunchtime, the crib was finally standing.

It was slightly off-center, and Harry had spent ten full minutes lying on the carpet with his head under the base, tightening a screw with the intense focus of a surgeon performing a heart transplant, but it was standing. Solid, smooth oak, simple and beautiful against the sage green wall.

Harry stood in front of it with his hands planted on his hips, chest heaving slightly, face streaked with paint and sweat, looking like he had just climbed Everest.

“I did that,” he announced proudly.

“We did that,” Y/N corrected from the chair.

Harry turned to her, pointing the Allen key in her direction. “You sat there looking gorgeous and bossing me around.”

“That is called project management.”

“That is called tyranny.”

“That is called making sure our child does not sleep in a death trap.”

Harry glanced back at the crib, suddenly alarmed. “It is not a death trap.”

“No,” Y/N said, smiling. “It is perfect.”

The pride on Harry’s face softened into something almost shy. He walked over to her and offered both hands, carefully helping her stand.

“Come look,” he murmured.

Y/N let him guide her across the room. They stood side by side in front of the crib, their shoulders touching. Harry’s hand found hers automatically, fingers sliding between hers with the familiar ease of breathing.

The nursery was still incomplete. There were boxes of tiny clothes stacked in the corner, a rocking chair still wrapped in protective plastic, and a mobile of little felt moons and stars waiting to be hung from the ceiling. The rug had not arrived yet. The shelves were empty.

But the crib was there.

The first real piece of her daughter’s room.

Y/N leaned into Harry’s side, resting her cheek against his shoulder. “This is where she is going to sleep.”

Harry made a strangled sound.

She looked up at him. “Are you crying?”

“No,” he said immediately, though his eyes were wet. “The paint fumes are very strong.”

“The window is open.”

“I am sensitive.”

Y/N laughed, turning into him. Harry wrapped his arms around her instantly, his chin resting on the top of her head.

For a long time, they just stood there.

The rest of the world was quiet. No cameras. No crowds. No stadium lights. No Jeff knocking on doors with crisis statements or Julius talking about extraction routes. Just their breathing, the soft music, and the almost-complete room waiting patiently for the little girl who had changed everything before she had even arrived.

The next three weeks moved differently.

Not slowly, exactly. Time did not slow at the end of pregnancy. It stretched and prolonged , somehow crawling and flying all at once. Days became measured in tiny domestic milestones instead of tour dates.

The rocking chair arrived on a Thursday morning. Harry insisted on testing it immediately, settling into the wide, cream-colored chair with a deeply serious expression while Y/N stood in the doorway eating a bowl of cereal directly from the mixing bowl because none of the normal bowls were big enough for her current appetite.

“It squeaks,” Harry announced after three rocks.

“It does not squeak.”

“It has a tiny squeak.”

“You are inventing problems.”

“Our daughter deserves a silent chair.”

“Our daughter currently has hiccups and is headbutting my pelvis. I don’t think she cares about a squeak.”

Harry immediately got up and came over, abandoning the chair inspection to place both hands on her stomach. “Hiccups?”

Y/N nodded, swallowing a mouthful of cereal. “Little rhythmic ones. There.”

Harry froze, feeling the tiny, repetitive pulse beneath his palm. His expression did the thing again—that helpless, astonished softening that made him look younger and older all at once.

“She has hiccups,” he whispered, like it was the most profound revelation in human history.

“She is very advanced.”

“She is brilliant,” Harry agreed solemnly. “Probably gifted.”

“She has not even been born.”

“Doesn’t matter. I can tell.”

Marnie came over that Friday with three enormous shopping bags, a bottle of non-alcoholic sparkling rosé, and the kind of determined expression that suggested she had been preparing for this visit like a military campaign.

“I come bearing supplies,” she announced from the foyer, kicking the door shut behind her with her heel. “Do not question me. I have read every single postpartum list on the internet, and men should not be trusted with nipple cream.”

Harry, who had been walking down the stairs carrying a basket of freshly washed baby clothes, stopped dead.

“I bought nipple cream,” he said defensively.

Marnie looked him up and down. “Did you buy the correct one?”

Harry hesitated.

Marnie smiled triumphantly. “Exactly. Move aside, Styles.”

She swept into the kitchen like a hurricane, immediately taking over the island with maternity pads, freezer meals, muslin cloths, tiny hats, and several items Harry refused to look at directly.

“Is that a bottle shaped like—”

“Do not ask questions you cannot emotionally handle,” Marnie cut him off.

Harry shut his mouth.

Y/N laughed so hard from her spot at the kitchen table that she had to press both hands to her stomach. “I missed you.”

Marnie’s expression softened instantly. She walked over, cupping Y/N’s face and pressing a loud kiss to her forehead. “I missed you too, incubator. Look at you. Absolutely massive.”

“Marnie!”

“What? It is beautiful massive. Majestic massive. Like a very elegant planet.”

Harry pointed at her. “I said almost the exact same thing last week, and she threatened to smother me with the pregnancy pillow.”

“That is because I am allowed to say it,” Marnie said breezily. “You put the baby in there.”

Harry opened his mouth, closed it, then nodded. “Fair.”

Anne arrived two days later with enough food to feed a small village and immediately put half of it in the freezer while gently scolding Harry for the state of his spice drawer.

Gemma dropped by with a stack of board books and a tiny knitted jumper that had once belonged to Harry as a baby. It was cream, soft with age, and impossibly small.

Harry held it in both hands for a long time, staring down at it with an expression so fragile that Y/N felt her chest ache.

“You wore that?” she asked softly.

“Apparently,” he murmured. “Looks too small for a human.”

“You were very squishy, remember?”

Harry looked up, offended. “That word is haunting me.”

Y/N smiled, leaning heavily against his side as he held the jumper to her stomach. “She can wear it home from hospital.”

Harry’s eyes snapped to hers, bright and wet. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

His fingers tightened around the little jumper. “Okay.”

The hospital bag became Harry’s obsession.

He packed it once. Then unpacked it. Then repacked it with a printed checklist from Dr. Gowda’s office. Then watched three videos online and decided he had done it wrong. Then added snacks, a phone charger, two pairs of socks for Y/N, a portable fan, lip balm, a speaker, a Polaroid camera, a full packet of ginger biscuits even though she had not been nauseous in months, and an entire outfit for himself.

“Why are you packing a silk shirt?” Y/N asked, standing in the bedroom doorway with one hand supporting the underside of her bump.

Harry looked down at the shirt in question. “In case there are photos.”

“What photos?”

“I don’t know. Family photos.”

“You want to wear silk to childbirth?”

He looked wounded. “It is breathable.”

“You are not wearing Gucci silk while I am in labor.”

“It is vintage.”

“Harry.”

“Fine,” he sighed, removing it from the bag with great sadness. “I will wear a t-shirt like a commoner.”

“You are so brave.”

“I know.”

By thirty-eight weeks, Y/N had stopped pretending she could move like a normal person.

Walking from the bedroom to the kitchen required commitment. Getting off the sofa required a strategic plan. Putting on socks had become an Olympic sport she had no interest in competing in, so Harry simply took over the job without being asked.

Every morning, he sat on the edge of the bed, lifted one of her feet into his lap, and carefully pulled thick socks over her swollen ankles with the concentration of someone handling fine porcelain.

“You know,” Y/N murmured one morning, watching him massage the arch of her foot with his thumbs, “when we met, you were wearing a ridiculous suit and drinking whiskey on a balcony.”

Harry looked up at her through his curls, dimples appearing slowly. “And now I am putting compression socks on you.”

“Very glamorous.”

“I contain multitudes.”

“You also burned grilled cheese.”

“It was artisanal char.”

“It was black.”

“It was rustic.”

Y/N smiled, leaning back against the pillows. “I still ate it.”

Harry’s teasing expression softened. He pressed a kiss to the inside of her ankle, then rested his cheek briefly against her shin.

“Best night of my life,” he murmured.

Y/N’s throat tightened.

She reached down, running her fingers through his curls. “Even now?”

Harry looked at her as if the answer was obvious.

“Especially now,” he said. “I didn’t know it yet, but that night was the first page.”

The first real contraction came at 2:13 in the morning.

Y/N was not in bed.

Sleep had become a complicated negotiation between her bladder, her hips, her daughter’s feet, and Harry’s complete inability to stay on his own side of the mattress. She had given up sometime after one in the morning and wandered down the hallway to the nursery, wrapped in one of Harry’s old tour hoodies and a pair of soft cotton shorts that barely fit beneath the bump.

The house was silent.

Rain tapped softly against the windows, gentle and constant. The nursery glowed faintly under the warm light of the small moon-shaped lamp Harry had installed on the shelf. The sage green walls looked darker at night, cozy and calm. The crib stood finished and waiting, made up with crisp white sheets and the tiny knitted blanket Anne had brought from Cheshire folded over the rail.

Y/N lowered herself carefully into the rocking chair with a quiet groan, one hand braced on the armrest, the other supporting her stomach.

“Your father thinks this chair squeaks,” she whispered to the bump, rocking gently. “But he is wrong. Don’t tell him I said that. He is very sensitive.”

The baby shifted low, a slow, heavy roll.

Y/N smiled tiredly. “I know. We are both running out of space.”

She rested her head back against the cushion and let her eyes drift shut.

For a while, the rocking helped. The rain helped. The quiet helped.

Then a deep, unmistakable tightening gripped low in her abdomen and wrapped around her back like a band being pulled too tight.

Y/N’s eyes snapped open.

She froze, her hands gripping the arms of the chair.

The pain built slowly, peaked, then ebbed away.

She sat perfectly still, staring at the crib.

“No,” she whispered. “Not yet.”

The room remained silent.

She waited.

Ten minutes passed.

Then it happened again.

This time, it was stronger. It pulled a sharp breath from her lungs, forcing her to lean forward, one hand pressed hard against the underside of her stomach.

“Oh,” she gasped softly. “Okay. That is new.”

A third one came eight minutes later.

By the fourth, Y/N stopped pretending it was nothing.

She reached for her phone on the small side table, opening the contraction timer app Harry had downloaded three separate times because he did not trust the first two. Her fingers trembled slightly as she tapped the screen.

Start.

The contraction rolled through her again, deep and heavy. She breathed through it the way the midwife had taught her. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Slow. Controlled.

Stop.

Six minutes.

Y/N stared at the number.

Then she looked toward the hallway.

Harry was asleep in their bed, probably sprawled diagonally across the mattress, completely unaware that the world was shifting again.

For a strange, suspended moment, she did not move.

She just sat there in the nursery, the room Harry had painted with his own hands, the room where he had fought a crib and cried over the name Stevie, the room where they had imagined this moment from a distance.

And now it was here.

She stood carefully.

The walk back to the bedroom felt both endless and impossibly short.

Harry was exactly where she expected him to be, lying on his stomach across the mattress, one arm thrown dramatically over her side of the bed, curls flattened against the pillow, mouth slightly open. He looked so peaceful that Y/N almost hated to wake him.

Almost.

“Harry,” she whispered.

He did not move.

“Harry.”

A soft snore.

Y/N gripped the doorframe as another contraction started, her eyes closing tightly. “Harry, wake up right now.”

Harry’s head shot up instantly.

“What?” he gasped, his voice thick and panicked. “What happened? Are you sick? Is it the baby? Did I miss an appointment?”

Y/N stood at the foot of the bed, one hand on her stomach, breathing through the tightening. “I think we need to call Dr. Gowda.”

For one second, Harry was completely still.

Then he exploded into motion.

He scrambled out of bed so quickly that his foot got caught in the duvet. He tripped, caught himself on the nightstand, knocked over a glass of water, and swore loudly enough to wake half of Hampstead.

“Labour?” he blurted, eyes wide, hair sticking in every possible direction. “Is it labour? Are we doing labour? Now?”

Y/N breathed out slowly as the contraction faded. “I think so.”

Harry stared at her.

Then his face went completely white.

“Oh my god,” he whispered. “Okay. Okay. Right. We trained for this.”

“We did not train.”

“We went to the class.”

“You asked the instructor if babies have knees.”

“They looked very bendy in the video!”

“Harry.”

“Right. Sorry. Focus.”

He spun in a circle, looking around the room as if the hospital bag might have grown legs and hidden itself. “Bag. We need the bag. The bag is packed. I packed the bag. Where is the bag?”

“By the door.”

“Right. The door. Excellent. Which door?”

Y/N stared at him.

Harry froze, then pressed both hands to his face. “I am being very unhelpful.”

“You are being very Harry.”

He lowered his hands. His eyes were panicked, but the second they landed on her face, something in him steadied. He crossed the room quickly, stopping right in front of her. He did not touch her stomach first. He cupped her face.

“Are you scared?” he asked softly.

The gentleness of the question was what undid her.

Y/N nodded, her eyes filling instantly. “A little.”

Harry’s expression cracked. He leaned in, pressing his forehead to hers.

“Me too,” he whispered. “But we are going to do it. You are going to do it, and I am going to be right there. I am not going anywhere.”

“I know.”

He kissed her once, soft and firm. “Good. Now, I am going to put trousers on, call the doctor, call Miller, text your terrifying best friend, and get you to the hospital without fainting.”

“That is a lot of tasks.”

“I am a father now,” he said, though his voice wobbled slightly. “I multitask.”

He did not multitask well.

He put his t-shirt on inside out. He called Miller twice because he forgot he had already called him. He nearly left the hospital bag by the stairs until Y/N calmly pointed at it. He packed the pregnancy pillow into the car even though she insisted they did not need it, because in his words, “She has been with us from the beginning, Y/N. She deserves to see this through.”

By the time Miller pulled the car around, Harry was fully awake and vibrating with anxious energy.

The rain had turned heavy, drumming against the roof of the black Range Rover as Harry helped Y/N into the back seat. He climbed in beside her immediately, the hospital bag, the pregnancy pillow, and a completely unnecessary tote bag of snacks wedged around their feet.

Miller glanced at them in the rearview mirror. “Ready?”

Harry looked at Y/N.

Y/N gripped his hand as another contraction started.

Harry’s face tightened in helpless sympathy as she leaned forward, breathing through it. He placed one hand on the small of her back, rubbing slow, firm circles exactly the way she had shown him.

“Breathe with me,” he murmured. “In. Good. Out. There you go. You’re doing so well.”

The panic was still there, humming beneath his skin, but he was controlling it for her.

When the contraction passed, Y/N slumped back against the leather seat, exhausted already.

Harry kissed her temple. “That was three minutes apart.”

“That is not comforting.”

“No, but it is efficient.”

She managed a weak laugh.

The city outside the tinted windows was dark and wet, the streets slick beneath the orange glow of the lamps. London at 3:00 A.M. looked exactly like it had on the night they met—rainy, blurred, and full of strange possibility.

Y/N looked out the window, her hand wrapped tightly around Harry’s.

“Do you remember the balcony?” she asked softly.

Harry turned to her immediately. “At the Fashion Awards?”

She nodded.

His mouth curved gently. “You were double-fisting champagne.”

“You were hiding from a metaverse concert pitch.”

“I still think leaving was one of my finest decisions.”

“You barely knew me.”

Harry squeezed her hand. “I knew enough.”

Y/N looked at him, breathing shakily.

His eyes were bright in the dark car.

“I knew you were trouble,” he said softly. “I knew you made me laugh. I knew I didn’t want you to walk back inside that party. And I knew, when I woke up and you were gone, that I had completely messed up by not asking you to stay.”

Y/N’s eyes filled.

“I was scared.”

“I know,” he whispered. “But you stayed eventually.”

The clinic was quiet when they arrived, tucked discreetly behind tall black gates and a line of dripping hedges. Dr. Gowda’s team had clearly been prepared. A nurse met them at the private entrance with a wheelchair, which Y/N immediately refused until another contraction hit and she sat down without another word.

Harry did not make a comment.

That was how she knew he was truly terrified.

They were taken through a side corridor, not unlike the secret routes that had followed them through Europe, but this time, it did not feel like hiding. It felt like protection. There were no paparazzi, no shouting men, no flashbulbs exploding in the dark. Just warm lights, quiet voices, and Harry’s hand locked around hers.

The room was spacious and dim, with soft lamps, pale curtains, and a large window looking out over a small private garden slick with rain. It did not smell like lavender and expensive floor polish the way the Harley Street clinic had that first morning, but it smelled clean and calm.

Y/N was helped onto the bed. Monitors were adjusted. Questions were asked. Harry answered half of them wrong and had to be gently corrected.

“How far apart are the contractions?” the midwife asked.

“Three minutes,” Harry said instantly.

“Four,” Y/N corrected, breathless.

“Three and a half,” Harry amended.

Y/N looked at him. “That is not how time works.”

“I am rounding emotionally.”

The midwife smiled.

Dr. Gowda arrived just after four, looking far too calm for a man entering what felt like the most important moment in the history of the universe.

“Well,” he said warmly, washing his hands at the sink. “Looks like someone decided not to wait until her due date.”

Harry immediately looked down at Y/N’s stomach. “Impatient. Like her mother.”

Y/N glared at him.

“Or her father,” Harry corrected quickly. “Mostly her father. Entirely her father.”

The hours blurred after that.

Morning broke slowly outside the window, turning the wet garden from black to grey to a soft, washed-out green. The rain did not stop. It tapped steadily against the glass, the same rhythm over and over again, like the world keeping time.

Marnie arrived at half past six with damp hair, a giant coat thrown over her pajamas, and the expression of someone who had fully intended to fight hospital security if necessary.

“I am here,” she announced breathlessly, bursting into the room with a tote bag slung over one shoulder. “I brought lip balm, a fan, jelly sweets, and emotional support. Also, Harry, you look like you are about to be sick.”

Harry was standing beside the bed, holding a cup of ice chips and wearing the face of a man who had seen the edge of reality.

“I am fine,” he said.

“You are grey.”

“I am a very pale person.”

“You are olive-toned, babe.”

Y/N laughed weakly from the bed, then immediately groaned as another contraction started.

Harry was at her side in an instant.

Everything else vanished from his face.

He set the cup down, took her hand, and leaned close. “I’m here. Look at me. There you go. Breathe. In. Out. Good girl. That’s it.”

Marnie watched him for a second, her teasing expression softening into something almost tender.

Then she moved to Y/N’s other side and took her free hand. “You are doing brilliantly, babe. Absolutely terrifying and majestic. Like a goddess with lower back pain.”

Y/N let out a breathless, broken laugh that turned into a sob.

At eight, Anne and Gemma arrived.

Harry stepped into the hallway to meet them, and Y/N watched through the half-open door as he folded instantly into his mother’s arms. For the first time all morning, he let himself look as scared as he felt. Anne held him tightly, one hand cradling the back of his head as he bent over her shoulder, his broad frame trembling slightly.

Y/N could not hear what Anne said to him, but she watched Harry nod. Watched him wipe his eyes with the heel of his hand. Watched him take a deep breath and come back into the room with his jaw set and his eyes wet but steady.

He came straight to her.

“Hi,” he whispered, brushing damp hair back from her forehead.

“Hi.”

“My mum says you are going to be amazing.”

“Your mum is biased.”

“She is never wrong.”

The day stretched.

Pain became the whole world for a while. It was not pretty or cinematic. It was sweat and shaking hands, wet hair stuck to her neck, Harry holding a straw to her lips, Marnie whispering fierce encouragement, Anne wiping her forehead with a cool cloth, and Harry’s voice—always Harry’s voice—anchoring her back to herself whenever she thought she might float away from her own body.

At one point, Y/N looked at him through tears and shook her head.

“I can’t,” she sobbed, her grip on his hand almost crushing. “Harry, I can’t do it.”

His face broke open with pain, but he did not look away.

“Yes, you can,” he said, his voice rough and fierce. “You can. You have done impossible things since the day I met you. You walked into a room with me when you were terrified. You faced those cameras. You crossed countries with me. You made a home out of all the madness. You have carried her and kept her safe for nine months. You can do this, darling. I know you can.”

“I’m so tired.”

“I know,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers. “I know you are. But I am right here. I have got you. We have got you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut.

His thumb brushed over her cheek.

“Come on,” he murmured. “Let’s meet our girl.”

Stevie Anne Styles was born at 2:47 in the afternoon.

For one suspended, terrifying second, the world went completely silent.

Then a small, furious cry filled the room.

Harry made a sound Y/N had never heard before.

It was not a laugh. It was not a sob. It was something raw and broken and absolutely human. His hand flew to his mouth, his eyes going wide as the tiny, squirming baby was lifted carefully and placed directly onto Y/N’s chest.

Y/N looked down.

And there she was.

Red-faced. Furious. Wet dark curls plastered to her tiny head. Her mouth open in a heartbroken wail, her impossibly small fists waving angrily against Y/N’s skin.

Y/N sobbed instantly.

“Oh my god,” she breathed, her hands trembling as they came up to hold the baby against her chest. “Oh my god. Hi. Hi, baby.”

Harry stood frozen beside the bed, tears streaming openly down his face.

“She’s here,” he whispered.

Y/N looked up at him, laughing and crying at the same time. “She’s here.”

Harry leaned down slowly, as if he was afraid any sudden movement might shatter the moment. He placed one shaking hand over Stevie’s tiny back, his palm so large it covered nearly all of her.

The baby’s crying softened at the warmth of him.

Harry let out a sob.

“Hi,” he choked out, his voice completely wrecked. “Hi, Stevie.”

At the sound of his voice, Stevie turned her little face slightly toward him, her cries stuttering into hiccupping breaths.

Harry looked like he had been struck by lightning.

“She knows me,” he whispered, looking at Y/N with wide, shattered eyes. “She knows my voice.”

Y/N smiled through her tears. “I told you.”

Harry lowered his head carefully and pressed the softest kiss to the crown of his daughter’s head.

“My girl,” he whispered. “My perfect girl.”

When they allowed visitors, Marnie was crying openly in the corner, one hand pressed to her mouth. Gemma had both arms wrapped around Anne, who was sobbing quietly into her daughter’s shoulder.

But Y/N barely saw any of them.

The whole world had narrowed down to the tiny weight on her chest and the man beside her, bent over them both, crying like his heart had been cracked open and remade.

“She is so small,” Harry whispered in awe.

“She does not feel small from this side,” Y/N mumbled weakly.

Harry let out a wet, startled laugh, kissing her forehead. “You were incredible. I mean it. I have never seen anything like that. You are... God, Y/N.”

He shook his head, unable to find the words.

Y/N looked up at him, exhausted and glowing and completely undone.

“Do you still think she looks like a Stevie?” she whispered.

Harry looked down at the baby.

Stevie blinked one eye open, frowned dramatically, and let out a tiny, offended squeak.

Harry laughed through a fresh wave of tears. “Yeah,” he whispered. “She is definitely a Stevie.”

The first night was a blur of impossible tenderness.

Harry refused to sleep.

Y/N tried to tell him to rest, but he simply shook his head from the chair beside the hospital bed, Stevie bundled securely against his bare chest beneath the open front of his hoodie.

“I have slept before,” he whispered, looking down at his daughter as if she was the only thing in the universe. “I have never done this.”

The room was dark except for the small lamp by the bed. Rain still tapped softly against the window. The rest of the family had gone home hours ago with promises to return in the morning. Marnie had kissed Y/N’s forehead, called her a warrior, cried again, then made Harry swear on his entire discography that he would text her hourly updates.

Now, it was just the three of them.

Y/N lay on her side, exhausted beyond anything she had ever known, watching Harry hold their daughter.

He was shirtless beneath his hoodie, his hair a mess, his face pale and tear-streaked. Stevie was curled against him like she had always belonged there, her tiny cheek pressed to the inked skin over his heart.

Harry’s thumb stroked slowly over the blanket wrapped around her back.

“Her hands are so small,” he whispered.

“You have said that twelve times.”

“They keep being small.”

Y/N smiled sleepily.

Harry looked over at her, his eyes softening. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I gave birth to an entire human.”

“That is fair.”

“And like I love her so much it hurts.”

Harry’s face crumpled. He looked back down at Stevie, swallowing hard. “Yeah. That part is aggressive, isn’t it?”

Y/N let out a quiet laugh.

Harry leaned his head back against the chair, still staring at the baby. “I keep thinking about the first scan. The little kidney bean.”

“She has upgraded.”

“She has hair,” Harry whispered, awestruck. “And cheeks. And she is very angry.”

“Again, she gets that from you.”

Harry looked offended. “I am very calm.”

“You nearly cried because the hospital only had strawberry jelly and not raspberry.”

“I had a vision for your post-birth snack experience.”

“You are insane.”

“I am in love,” he said simply.

The words settled over the room.

Y/N looked at him.

Harry did not seem to realize what he had said at first. He was still looking down at Stevie, still tracing the edge of the blanket with his thumb. But then he went still.

Slowly, he lifted his eyes to Y/N’s.

The room became very quiet.

He swallowed.

“I am,” he said softly. “I know this is probably the most chaotic possible time to say it properly, and I know there is a baby on my chest and I smell like hospital soap, but I am. I am completely in love with you.”

Y/N’s eyes filled instantly.

Harry’s voice trembled, but he kept going.

“And I know we did everything backwards. I know we started with a night we didn’t plan and a baby neither of us expected, and I know sometimes you worry that I am here because of her.” He looked down at Stevie, then back at Y/N. “But I need you to know that I love you separately. I love you as her mum, yes. God, I love you as her mum. But I also love you as the woman on the balcony who called me bingo night energy. I love you as the photographer who told me the lighting was tragic. I love you when you steal my hoodies and threaten my green juice and cry over tiny socks. I love you when you are scared. I love you when you are stubborn. I love you.”

Y/N covered her mouth with one shaking hand, tears slipping silently down her cheeks.

Harry looked suddenly nervous. “You do not have to say it back right now. You have had a very intense day.”

Y/N laughed wetly. “Harry.”

“What?”

“I love you too, you idiot.”

His entire face collapsed.

“Oh,” he breathed.

Y/N reached for him, and Harry stood carefully, cradling Stevie with one arm as he leaned over the bed to kiss her.

It was the softest kiss they had ever shared.

No urgency. No hiding. No grief. No panic. Just the three of them, warm and safe in a quiet room while the rain fell over London.

When he pulled back, his forehead rested against hers.

Stevie made a tiny grunting sound between them.

Harry laughed softly. “She approves.”

“She wants food.”

“Also very valid.”

Three days later, they brought Stevie home.

Not through the front doors. Not beneath the cruel white explosion of flashbulbs. Not with men shouting questions about her body or the baby’s name from behind police barriers.

No one knew.

That was the strange, almost miraculous thing.

For once, the machinery of Harry’s life worked exactly the way it was supposed to. The clinic had been locked down with quiet, ruthless efficiency. Dr. Gowda’s staff were discreet to the point of invisibility. Julius had coordinated the route with Miller down to the second, using a private side entrance that opened into a narrow, gated lane behind the building. There were no photographers waiting there. No camera phones lifted over hedges. No strangers trying to steal the first image of their daughter before they had even learned the shape of her face.

Just rain.

Soft London rain misting over the black car as Harry carried the car seat with both hands, his entire body curved protectively around it as if he could shield Stevie from the whole world by sheer force of will.

Y/N moved slowly beside him, one hand pressed carefully to her tender stomach, the other gripping Harry’s elbow for balance. Her body felt unfamiliar in its emptiness and heaviness all at once. Everything ached. Her legs trembled with each step, and the soft fabric of his enormous hoodie brushed against skin that still felt bruised and too sensitive.

Harry noticed every wince.

“Slowly,” he murmured, turning his head toward her without stopping his careful watch over the baby. “We are in no rush. Take your time.”

“I am taking my time,” Y/N whispered, managing a tired little smile. “I think this is just my speed now.”

Harry’s face softened immediately. “It is a very elegant speed.”

“It is a ninety-year-old woman speed.”

“A very beautiful ninety-year-old woman.”

Miller opened the car door before she could laugh properly. Harry helped her into the back seat first, one hand steadying her lower back, the other hovering uselessly because he clearly wanted to lift her into the car himself but knew better than to try.

Once she was settled, he installed the car seat with the focus of a man defusing a bomb.

“Harry,” Y/N whispered after watching him check the straps for the fourth time.

He did not look up. “Hmm?”

“She is secure.”

“I know.”

“Then stop poking her.”

“I am not poking her. I am verifying.”

Stevie let out a tiny, offended squeak from beneath the cream blanket.

Harry froze instantly.

Y/N raised an eyebrow. “You woke her.”

Harry looked genuinely devastated. “I betrayed her trust.”

“You adjusted a buckle.”

“I will apologize when she is old enough to understand.”

Despite the exhaustion pulling at every bone in her body, Y/N smiled all the way home.

The house in Hampstead had never been so quiet.

Not the lonely quiet it had carried before Y/N moved in. Not the echoing quiet Harry used to complain about when he came home from tour and found the rooms too big, too still, too full of his own absence.

This quiet was different.

It was full.

It was the hush of people whispering because a baby was asleep. The soft creak of floorboards beneath careful feet. The gentle hum of the bottle warmer in the kitchen. The faint, constant rhythm of the washing machine already overwhelmed by muslins, tiny socks, and spit-up cloths.

It was home.

Harry carried the car seat through the front door like it contained the crown jewels.

“Careful,” Y/N whispered, even though he was moving with impossible precision.

“I am being careful,” he whispered back, eyes fixed on Stevie.

“You nearly walked into the wall.”

“The wall moved.”

Miller, standing by the door with the hospital bags, looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh.

Harry carefully set the car seat down in the middle of the foyer. Then he crouched in front of it and simply stared.

Y/N stood beside him, leaning heavily against the banister, watching as Harry slowly reached out and unbuckled the tiny straps with trembling fingers.

“Do you want me to—”

“No,” Harry whispered immediately. “I have got her.”

He slid one hand beneath Stevie’s head and the other beneath her tiny body, lifting her out with a careful, terrified gentleness that made Y/N’s chest ache.

Stevie stretched in his hands, her little face scrunching up in protest.

Harry froze. “What does that mean?”

“She is stretching.”

“Right,” he breathed, staring down at her with absolute seriousness. “Brilliant. Very good stretch.”

Y/N bit back a laugh. “You are praising her for existing.”

“She is doing a fantastic job at it.”

They took her upstairs together.

The nursery door was already open.

The room was completely finished now. Anne had come by while they were in the hospital, apparently unable to help herself. The boxes were gone. The shelves were filled with books, tiny shoes, framed photos, and a small vase of fresh white flowers. The mobile of felt moons and stars hung perfectly above the crib. The cream rug had arrived. The rocking chair sat in the corner beneath the window, draped with a knitted blanket.

Harry stopped in the doorway.

Y/N stopped beside him.

Neither of them spoke.

The last time they had stood in this room together, it had been full of tools and paint and future tense.

Now, Harry was holding their daughter.

Y/N reached for his arm, her fingers wrapping around his bicep.

Harry looked at the crib, then down at Stevie, then at Y/N.

His eyes filled immediately.

“Oh, H,” she whispered.

“I’m fine,” he said, voice cracking. “I am very normal about this.”

“You are crying.”

“She is very small, and the room is very green.”

Y/N laughed softly, wiping beneath her own eyes.

Harry walked slowly into the nursery. He crossed the room and lowered himself into the rocking chair, cradling Stevie against his chest. The chair creaked faintly.

Harry looked up instantly. “I knew it.”

Y/N rolled her eyes, smiling as she eased herself carefully onto the cushioned bench by the window. Sitting still hurt. Moving hurt more. She lowered herself slowly, one hand braced against the armrest, and exhaled once she was finally settled.

“Do not start with the chair,” she murmured.

“It squeaks.”

“It is charming.”

“It is defective.”

“It is holding you and your daughter perfectly well.”

That shut him up.

Harry looked down at Stevie, his face softening into complete surrender. He rocked gently, the tiny squeak of the chair joining the quiet rhythm of the room.

Y/N leaned back against the pillows on the bench, exhaustion settling deep into her bones, but she did not want to leave. She wanted to memorize every second. The sage walls. The rain at the window. Harry’s bare feet on the rug. Stevie’s dark curls peeking out from beneath her tiny hat. The way Harry’s hand covered almost her whole back.

After a while, Harry began to hum.

It took Y/N a moment to place the melody.

Sweet Creature.

Her breath caught.

Harry did not look up. He just rocked his daughter slowly in the chair and hummed the song he had once sung to Y/N across an empty arena, back when she had still been hidden in the shadows and wondering if she would ever truly belong in his world.

Now, there were no shadows.

Just this.

A soft knock sounded on the open nursery door.

Y/N turned.

Marnie stood in the hallway holding a covered casserole dish in one hand and a massive bouquet of pink tulips in the other. Her eyes were already wet.

“I know I said I would wait until tomorrow,” she whispered, “but I lasted exactly forty-three minutes, and then I started crying in the Tesco car park.”

Y/N smiled tiredly, opening one arm. “Come here.”

Marnie set the dish and flowers down with no care whatsoever and crossed the room, kneeling only long enough to kiss Y/N’s cheek before immediately perching beside her on the cushioned bench.

“You made a human,” Marnie whispered fiercely, wrapping an arm carefully around Y/N’s shoulders.

“I did.”

“With Harry Styles.”

“Marnie.”

“Sorry. Still processing.”

Harry looked up from the rocking chair, his face soft and proud. “Do you want to hold your goddaughter?”

Marnie’s head snapped toward him. “Goddaughter?”

Y/N smiled, tears springing fresh to her eyes.

“If you want,” she whispered.

Marnie stared at them both.

Then she burst into tears so violently that Stevie startled in Harry’s arms.

“Oh god,” Marnie gasped, slapping a hand over her mouth. “I scared the baby. I have already failed.”

Harry chuckled, standing carefully. “You have not failed. She just has strong opinions.”

“Like her father,” Y/N murmured.

Harry pointed at her. “That is the only time I will allow that joke.”

Marnie accepted Stevie with shaking hands, settling back against the cushions while Harry hovered so close that Marnie finally glared up at him through her tears.

“Harry, I love you, but if you breathe down my neck any harder, I am going to bite you.”

Harry took one reluctant step back.

Y/N smiled from beside her, one hand pressed to her stomach, her body aching but her heart so full it felt impossible to hold.

They were still in the nursery an hour later when Harry’s phone began to buzz.

He was sitting on the ottoman near Y/N’s feet, one hand resting lightly on her ankle while Marnie rocked Stevie in the chair and whispered absolute nonsense to her in the softest voice Y/N had ever heard.

The buzzing stopped.

Then started again.

Harry glanced at the screen.

His face changed.

Y/N noticed instantly. “Jeff?”

Harry nodded once. He stood, pressing the phone to his ear as he walked toward the hallway.

“Yeah?”

His voice was low. Careful.

Y/N watched him from the bench, her heart beginning to thud harder beneath her ribs.

Harry went very still.

Whatever Jeff was saying, it wiped the softness from his face completely. His jaw tightened, and his free hand dragged slowly through his curls.

“How?” Harry asked, his voice flat.

A pause.

Marnie looked at Y/N.

Y/N’s stomach dropped.

Harry listened for another few seconds, then looked back toward the nursery. His eyes found Y/N’s, and the apology in them told her everything before he said a word.

“everyone knows,” he said quietly.

The room went completely silent.

Marnie’s arms tightened around Stevie by instinct.

Y/N stared at Harry. “They know she was born?”

Harry swallowed, nodding. “Not her name. No photos. Just... that the baby arrived. Someone tipped one of the papers. Jeff thinks it was someone watching the clinic gates or maybe someone from the outside security rotation. He is trying to lock it down.”

Y/N closed her eyes.

For three days, Stevie had belonged only to them.

For three days, the world had not known she was here.

It had been foolish, maybe, to think that could last. But the grief of losing even that tiny pocket of privacy hit her hard enough to make her breath shake.

Harry crossed the room instantly, lowering himself carefully beside her on the bench. He took her face in both hands, his eyes fierce and bright.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Look at me.”

Y/N opened her eyes.

“They do not have her,” Harry said. “They know a fact. That is all. They do not have her name. They do not have her face. They do not have this room. They do not have the first time I held her. They do not have you in the hospital. They do not have any of the things that matter.”

Y/N’s eyes filled.

Harry brushed his thumbs beneath them before the tears could fall.

“We kept her safe,” he whispered. “We are still keeping her safe.”

Marnie cleared her throat, her voice thick. “He is right, babe. They know there is a baby. They do not know Stevie.”

At the sound of her name, Harry looked over at Marnie, then back at Y/N.

“We can still keep that,” he said softly. “Her name. Her picture. The details. We do not owe them those.”

Y/N nodded slowly.

Harry lifted the phone back to his ear. “Jeff?”

He listened for a second.

“Yes, release a statement,” Harry said, his voice calm now but firm. “Say our daughter arrived safely, that mum and baby are healthy, and that we are asking for privacy. No name. No photo. No time. Nothing else.”

Another pause.

His jaw tightened slightly.

“No, Jeff,” Harry said. “She is not content. She is my daughter.”

Y/N’s breath caught.

Harry’s eyes stayed locked on hers.

“Thank you,” he said after another moment. “I’ll call you later.”

He hung up and dropped the phone onto the ottoman without looking at it again.

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then Stevie made a tiny, sleepy grunting noise from Marnie’s arms.

Harry let out a soft, shaky laugh, his whole face crumpling. “She is entirely unimpressed by the media cycle.”

“She has better things to do,” Marnie whispered, looking down at her. “Like sleeping and being perfect.”

Y/N reached for Harry’s hand.

He laced their fingers together immediately.

“Are you okay with that?” he asked softly. “Keeping her name just ours for a bit?”

Y/N nodded, unable to speak for a second.

Harry misunderstood her silence instantly. “We can change it. If you want to announce it, we can. I just thought—”

“No,” she interrupted, squeezing his hand. “No. I want that. I want something that belongs only to us.”

Harry’s face softened.

He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, lingering there for a long second.

“Then that is what we do.”

Eventually, Marnie left the casserole in the fridge, kissed Y/N’s cheek, told Harry he looked alarmingly competent as a father, and cried again in the hallway before Miller gently escorted her out.

That evening, Anne and Gemma arrived with more food, more tears, and the kind of efficient love that filled the entire house within minutes.

Anne took one look at Stevie and pressed both hands to her mouth.

“She has your mouth,” she whispered to Harry.

Harry leaned against the kitchen counter, dark circles under his eyes, a mug of tea untouched in his hand. “You think?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Gemma agreed, peering over Anne’s shoulder. “Poor thing. She is going to pout her way out of consequences.”

“I do not pout.”

The entire room turned to look at him.

Harry frowned. “I do not.”

Y/N, sitting on the sofa with a blanket tucked around her legs, smiled down at the baby sleeping against her chest. “You pouted yesterday because the nurse called your cardigan ‘interesting’.”

“It is an excellent cardigan.”

“It had ducks on it,” Gemma said.

“Designer ducks.”

Anne laughed, sitting carefully beside Y/N and brushing a gentle finger over Stevie’s tiny hand. “She is perfect.”

“She really is,” Y/N whispered.

Harry stood on the other side of the room, watching the women he loved surround his daughter. His face was tired and unshaven, his curls were a mess, and there was a damp patch of milk on the shoulder of his t-shirt from where Stevie had spit up on him earlier.

He had never looked happier.

Later, after everyone left and the house settled into its new, fragile quiet, Y/N found Harry in the nursery.

He was standing by the crib with Stevie asleep in his arms, rocking gently on his feet. The room was lit only by the moon lamp, the rest of the house dark behind him.

Y/N paused in the doorway.

For a moment, she did not speak.

Her photographer’s brain did what it had done the very first night she met him. It framed him. The composition was perfect. Harry in profile, his curls soft and wild, his tattooed arms cradling the tiny bundle against his chest, the sage wall behind him, the felt stars hanging above the crib.

It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

And for once, she did not feel the instinct to reach for a camera.

Harry noticed her a second later. “Hi,” he whispered.

“Hi.”

“She finally fell asleep.”

“She likes her dad.”

Harry looked down at Stevie, a smile tugging at his mouth. “She has excellent taste.”

Y/N walked into the room slowly, every step still tender. Harry immediately shifted, reaching out his free hand to help her even though she was only crossing a rug.

“I can walk across the nursery,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“You are hovering.”

“I am a father. Hovering is in the job description.”

She smiled, leaning into his side. Together, they looked down at their daughter.

Stevie slept peacefully, her tiny mouth parted, one fist tucked against her cheek. She looked impossibly small against the crook of Harry’s arm.

“She is real,” Y/N whispered.

Harry nodded, his throat bobbing. “Yeah.”

“I keep thinking I am going to wake up back in my flat with a positive test and no idea how any of this ends.”

Harry looked at her, his expression soft and serious. “And how does it end?”

Y/N looked around the nursery. At the crib he built. The walls he painted. The books on the shelves. The blanket from Anne. The strawberry socks Marnie had bought. The tiny cream jumper that had once been his. The daughter sleeping in his arms.

Then she looked back at him.

“It doesn’t,” she said softly. “I think this is the beginning.”

Harry’s face crumpled with emotion.

He leaned in and kissed her carefully, mindful of the baby between them. It was slow and warm and familiar. It tasted like tea and exhaustion and home.

When he pulled back, his forehead rested against hers.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you too.”

Stevie made a tiny sound in her sleep, stretching against Harry’s chest.

Harry looked down instantly. “And I love you, little menace.”

Y/N laughed softly, wiping a tear from her cheek.

He carefully handed Stevie to Y/N, helping her settle into the rocking chair with more pillows than strictly necessary. Y/N cradled the baby against her chest, adjusting the blanket around her tiny body.

Harry stood for a second, just watching them.

Then he turned and left the room.

Y/N frowned. “Harry?”

“One second,” he called softly from the hallway.

He came back holding his vintage 35mm camera.

Y/N’s breath caught.

Harry stopped in the doorway, suddenly hesitant. “Only if you want. Just for us.”

Y/N looked down at herself. Her hair was messy. Her face was pale and bare. Her body was soft and aching. She was wearing one of Harry’s old t-shirts. Stevie was curled against her chest, one impossibly small hand resting on her skin.

She looked nothing like the polished women in the magazines she used to shoot.

But Harry was looking at her like she was art.

“Okay,” she whispered.

Harry lifted the camera.

He did not pose her. He did not tell her to move her chin or fix the light. He just stood there in the doorway of the nursery, looking at the mother of his child and the baby girl who had turned his life inside out.

Y/N looked down at Stevie.

The baby opened her eyes for the briefest second, dark and unfocused, staring up at her as if she was the whole world.

The camera clicked.

Harry lowered it slowly.

Y/N looked up at him. “Are you going to develop it yourself?”

He nodded, his eyes shining. “Yeah.”

“No posting?”

Harry shook his head.

Harry walked over and knelt beside the rocking chair, resting his chin carefully on the armrest so he could look at both of them.

“This one stays off record,” he whispered.

Y/N reached out, running her fingers through his curls.

Outside, beyond the gates, the world was still loud. There would be headlines. There would be cameras. There would be strangers who thought they were owed pieces of them because they had been given pieces before.

But inside the sage green nursery, beneath the soft glow of the moon lamp, there was only the three of them.

Harry.

Y/N.

Stevie.

And one perfect photograph the world would never get to see.

THE END

soft harry is def my favorite.

did you liked it?!

let me know in the comments your favorite part!