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Two Weeks Later

Have you ever tried so hard to avoid a single person that it very literally takes everything out of you? Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you, Harry Styles.

Of course, because I am trying so very hard to avoid interacting with him, I see him. I bump into him during a run. He appears in the locker room corridor of the training center as I’m leaving it my hair damp and piled on my shoulders, saturating my tank top. He sits at the same table as me in the mess hall, we go for chalk in the training center at the same time. Wherever I go, he just appears, like Casper the fucking Ghost.

So you want to know the honest truth? When I walked into the meeting room at one pm on the dot to meet the higher-ups for a post-injury evaluation, I was not surprised to find Harry fucking Styles sitting in a tall-backed leather chair, actually wearing something that was not for training in, with a smirk the size of Texas on his face. And don’t get me started on the goddamn dimples.

Any traces of emotion I felt at his presence did not show on my face, I let my eyes glide over him as if the chair were empty and took my place next to the two men in suits, dressed in a grey high-waisted skirt and a white button-up blouse.

One man sits up completely straight as if there was a rod jammed down his spine, complete with a receding hairline in his blond patch of hair. He seems bored, as if there were a million better things for him to do than deal with me.

Well then.

The other man is more familiar, I’ve met him a few times before, and his eyes have the softened look of pity and knowing. My heart drops into my stomach. They’re going to retire me early. Goddamn it, one hostage situation and no one trusts you anymore?

I sit and fold my hands in my lap, making sure I kept direct eye contact with both men. I didn’t want to admit it, but I haven’t exactly been at my most sane, lately.

“Agent Caulwell,” Suit #1 says, his voice oddly high-pitched for someone of his demeanor. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from bursting out laughing. “You’ve been in recovery for a little over two months and recently released. According to the doctor, your initial arrival in the ward was…” he hesitates. “Chaotic. Your file states you attempted to take your life several times while in a state of frenzy, while also injuring other members of the staff.”

I can see my future becoming dimmer and dimmer as he speaks.

“However,” Suit #2 pipes up, “Once you were lucid for longer periods of time, your recovery progressed as normal. There have not been any reported incidents since your release from the hospital, and it seems that training is going nicely.”

No reported incidents? Harry didn’t report the hallucination?

I have half a mind to thank him for it, but the prick would never let me forget it.

I force myself to maintain eye contact with the two men, but I can feel Harry’s gaze, heavy and burning into my neck.

“Just to make sure that you are capable of working in the field again, we’re sending you on a mission.”

“Really?!” I blurt out, leaning forward in my chair, an incredulous look on my face.

Suit #2 smiles a little bit. “Yes, but not solo. This is just to test to make sure you’re mentally stable enough to handle the pressure, just a drug bust and infiltration at a high school. Agent Styles will be accompanying you.”

Just imagine a balloon deflating. Just imagine it. Then imagine my soul.

I nod, zipping my mouth to keep from saying anything stupid.

The next ten minutes are spent discussing terms and conditions about a suspected drug ring in a high school a couple of states away; a couple of students were already under suspicion and our job was to figure out who the supplier was, how far the circle extended, and report back. Harry and I were supposed to be transfer students.

Easy enough.

“What about the whole accent thing?” I ask, jutting my thumb out at Harry.

“American accents aren’t all that hard to copy, Holly,” he says in a spot-on accent, his entire person changed just by the way he spoke. I stare at him for a few solid minutes, completely flabbergasted. Calm down, Sophia, it’s just a voice.

But it’s the person who has the voice.

Fucking stop.

“I believe you two have everything you need. You’re both to leave tomorrow morning. Feel free to discuss a course of action in your own time. Agent Caulwell, Agent Styles, you are dismissed.” Suit #1 hands me a thin manila folder, containing all the documents I’ll need on the mission.

Drug bust. I can handle this.

Harry and I wait for the men to leave and the split second they do I’m up and out of the chair, halfway to the door before Harry speaks.

“What, too anxious to pack to run away with me?” He really needs to pick a default look that isn’t a fucking smirk, Jesus Christ.

“Don’t flatter yourself, you’re the last person I’d ever want to go on a damn mission with,” I spit back, brushing my hair out of my eyes.

Two long, graceful strides and I’m out in the hallway, thin heels clicking against the flooring, when I think I hear Harry mutter something.

“You look pretty today, Holly.”

***
It’s one am when I find myself face down on the floor, slick with cold sweat and shivering, for the fifth time this week. It’s Tuesday.

I rub my hands over my arms, trying to force some warmth back into them. Carefully, I reach over to the pitcher of water laid out for me by Olivia and take a lingering sip.

Limbs clumsy with sleep, I knock my way over to the bathroom, splashing water onto my face and staring at my pale reflection and the bags under my eyes. I won’t be able to function like this for much longer. A human body needs sleep.

A single thought races through my brain, over and over again.

Harry didn’t report my hallucination.

My body acts of it’s own accord, shutting off the bathroom light and undoing the locks lining my door. The door creaks open (something it didn’t do before, nothing in this building creaks), and there is Harry’s sleeping form, arms wrapped around an old sweatshirt as a makeshift pillow.

Sleep washes the years from his face, the stress and anxiety that come with the work we do, the face he puts on as a guard against the world.

I almost don’t want to wake him, to disturb the peaceful picture in front of me but my brain is overwhelmed with the feeling that I have to do this, that I want to do this.

Crouching down beside him, I poke his arm and whisper. “Harry, wake up.”

He barely budges, instead opting to snuggle his face deeper into the sweatshirt.

“Harry, wake up. I need to tell you something.” A sharper jab at the toned muscle of his bicep rouses him a little more, but to no avail.

“Harry fucking Styles, you’re doing a shit job at guarding. Someone could’ve blown my door open with a bomb and you’d still be fucking sleeping.” I shove his shoulder and he rolls over completely, groaning and sitting up.

“What the hell do you want, Holly?” His sleep voice is the epitome of annoyance.

I take a deep breath. “To say thank you.”

Harry opens his mouth to make some smart-ass remark before what I said fully registers in his brain. “To what?” There’s no smugness, only surprise and something else.

“To say thank you for not reporting my hallucination. I would’ve been in the psych ward faster than Niall can eat a three-course meal. So… thanks. I guess. Yeah.” He chuckles a little bit.

“It’s no problem, Holly. Really.”

I bite my lip, flipping through responses in my head before one appears on my tongue almost automatically.

“Don’t call me Holly. See you in the morning, Styles.”