Witness

I vomited in the helicopter.

That was the first sign that I wasn’t doing so well. The headache only increased as we flew to the nearest major hospital, watching Harry lie relatively motionless in front of me. I had a hard time walking from the helipad to the wheelchair they had prepared for me, my coordination and balance entirely shot. And things didn’t seem to much improve when I went in for my neurological exam.

“What’s your name?” the doctor asked, sitting across from my place on the examination table.

I stared straight ahead.

“Alright,” he agreed, scribbling something on a clipboard in his hand. “And what is today’s date?”

I stared straight ahead.

The doctor simply nodded. “Alright,” he agreed, this time more tentatively. “What is your date of birth?”

I couldn’t muster the strength to open my mouth. For a moment, I was scared that my own voice would rattle off the walls like the bullet did just under an hour before. My hands were shaking in my lap. My ears were still ringing.

“Um, February third?”

The fact that I posed it as a question didn’t help in convincing him I was fine.

But I needed to be fine for Harry, I needed to be fine to help him get better. They’d whisked him away immediately after landing to an intensive care unit somewhere in the hospital to do surgery. I wanted to give him my own blood if I could. But the stupid examination was holding me back.

“Alright,” the doctor said again, and I began to wonder if he was even listening. “Can you tell me who the prime minister is?”

“Can I please just see my boyfriend?” I asked in a near whisper.

The doctor gave me a stern look, one that seemed he was resisting rolling his eyes right back at me. “I have a few more questions to ask you, your health has to come first. Then you can go see your boyfriend.”

I slumped in my chair impatiently.

“Tell me everything you can about your injury.”

“I was hit in the back of the head so hard I blacked out,” I stated flatly. “It’s pretty straightforward.”

“And after that?” he questioned further. “Anything for further aggravate it?”

I stared straight ahead. I wouldn’t talk any more about what had happened in the warehouse. The thought of it made me want to vomit again, my knees weak despite the fact I was sitting, my head pounding steadily.

What had happened in the warehouse was that I killed my own brother.

That was enough to cause some major trauma for a while to begin with.

The doctor simply hummed to himself before standing up from his chair and swiftly closing the space between us. Before I knew it, he was shining a light in my eyes, nearly blinding me with surprise. I wanted to cry out, but I couldn’t. My thoughts were with Damien again. I was numb.

“Please try and follow this light with your eyes,” the doctor ordered, slowly moving the light across my field of vision.

I tried to follow it, I really did. But my eyes couldn’t focus on the spot; it seemed to be moving too fast for me to keep up. My head screamed just trying to keep up with it. After a few seconds, the doctor realized that it was futile and put away the flashlight, sitting back down in his seat and scribbling a few more words down before returning his gaze to me.

“You certainly have a concussion,” he stated, pulling out a new piece of paper out and scribbling more in an entirely indistinguishable scrawl. “A pretty serious one at that. You’ll need to rest for a while to give your brain a break.”

“Let me rest with my boyfriend then.”

The doctor sighed impatiently, but at least I got my way.



I did rest for a long time in the recliner beside Harry’s bed, curled up with a blanket and a set of earphones. I wasn’t allowed to fall asleep (not that I could have anyway) and the TV screen hurt my eyes. All I could do was stare at the ceiling and listen to the sound of the ocean pounding over and over in my ears. Music even proved to be too much for me.

I felt empty. I felt blank. I went back and forth between simply wishing I was dead and wishing the task force had gotten there before I’d killed him. Even after all that, I wished I hadn’t taken Damien Trask’s life. Even after all that, I was haunted by his face when I closed my eyes.

I stared at the ceiling. It felt like those lonely days in Holmes Chapel when I was so afraid, the days before Harry and the happiness he brought me. They were happening all over again, only a thousand times worse. Only I’d killed a man. Only I’d killed my brother. And Harry lay in serious condition in the bed across from me.

He was shirtless beneath a folded down sheet, a thick band wrapped around the chest with a tube protruding from the left side. His skin was unusually ghostly – though he was unusually tan to begin with – pallid and clammy to the touch. On my way to his room, I’d overheard the doctors saying he was a miracle case. He’d lost a lot of blood to begin with, and then after being shot, it didn’t help.

“The chances of it hitting that right ventricle and that specific angle are astronomical,” one doctor had said as I wheeled past. “At any other angle we would have had to do a cardiopulmonary bypass to fix it.”

Harry had been shot in the heart. Literally. Trying to save me. I tried not to think about the fact that if he had died, it would have all been my fault. Because, if there were no complications, he was going to be okay.

Harry was going to be okay.

“Mara.”

I snapped up, immediately ripping the earbuds from my ears. My head spun with the sudden movement, but in a moment it slowed and all I was left with was Harry. His eyes were open, lips parted slightly, expression groggy. But he was awake. And he was talking to me.

“Harry,” I gasped softly, getting up from my chair to sit on the edge of his bed. His hand turned at the wrist so I could comfortably slide mine to fit it perfectly, the way they seemed to always fit perfectly. I gave his hand a squeeze and he squeezed back. My heart fluttered with the happiness and utter disbelief. He was awake. And he was okay.

“What happened?” he asked, his voice even slower than usual. It would take a while for everything to go back to normal.

“Oh, not now,” I hummed to him, shaking my head. “You don’t want to know all the details. Let’s save it for later, okay? What matters now is that you’re safe and that I’m safe. Okay?”

He pressed his lips together. “And Damien?”

I gulped down a lump that formed in my throat at the sound of his name. “Damien’s gone.”

The look he gave me was all the confirmation I needed to know that he understood. His emerald eyes dulled a moment realizing what I’d sacrificed in order to save us both, that I would forever be changed from this day. That we would both be forever changed.

“Come here,” he sighed, moving one arm to the side so I could curl up beside him. He winced as I lay my head on his chest, even though it was the side that was still intact. I felt the guilt rise in me at the obviousness of his pain, the fact that the normally strong Harry Styles couldn’t even pretend he was fine.

“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled into his chest, the tears welling in my eyes.

“Oh, would you stop apologizing?” he protested, and I could hear him rolling his eyes even in his voice already. “I’m the one who jumped in front of the gun.”

“But – “ I began, but he cut me off again.

“Mara June Hitchcock, you stop right now or I will call the nurse and tell her you are bothering me,” he insisted firmly. “And I would rather not have to do that since it feels so nice to just be with you and feel safe again.”

I nodded into his skin, one of the safest places in the world. “Finally safe again.”

I had so many questions to ask him. Why Damien had taken him. How Damien had captured him. What Damien had done to him. Where had he been when Damien found him. I wanted so desperately to apologize for everything I’d put him through, for all of the things that were my fault.

Everything seemed to be out of my control but I still wanted to apologize.

But I couldn’t. Not then. Not with the heart monitor beeping in the background next to us, with him wincing with every rise and fall of his chest, his skin still so sallow. It would all have to wait until he regained his strength.

“What do we do now?” he asked then, breaking the silence.

I paused for a moment, not sure how to answer.

“We heal.”

I didn’t know how long it would take for me to lose the feeling that Damien was after me. I didn’t know how long it would take for me to get over the fact that I had taken his life with my own hands. I didn’t know how long it would take me to forgive myself for Harry’s injury. And I didn’t know how long it would take Harry to regain his strength, how long it would take him to return to normal. But we would. Eventually, we would heal.

“I think I’ll stay,” I began suddenly, not realizing the words were in my head until they were out of my mouth. “I think I’ll stay and start over here. Apply to UAL like we’d talked about.”

I glanced up to see his reaction and found him smiling down at me weakly, putting all his strength into it. “That feels like ages ago now,” I murmured, thinking back to the days even before Amelia’s death. It all felt like so long ago that I dreamed of having a future. But now it was a possibility again.

“Move in with me,” he murmured, catching me entirely off guard.

“What?” I questioned, trying my hardest not to seem entirely surprised.

“At least until you get yourself on your feet in London,” he insisted, the familiar smirk appearing on his face. “I can’t imagine either one of us will be okay with sleeping alone for a while, if we’re being honest.”

I stared at him, amazed at his propensity to be able to joke about this already. “Are you sure?”

He sighed, his face turning more serious this time. “Mara, listen,” he began, eyebrows knit as though he was focusing impossibly hard on his words. “I’ve spent a lot of time close to death recently, and it made me think about what’s important in my life.”

I nodded gravely. It had made me think perhaps just as much.

“You’re important to me,” he explained softly, reaching to run his thumb gingerly across my cheek. “I would be devastated without you. I want to be able to tell you I love you whenever I want. I want you all day, every day, for as long as we can.”

I stared at him breathless, unable to even formulate a response. No one had ever said anything like that to me in a day in my life. Until that moment, I hadn’t entirely realized what it meant to be loved. Until I lay there in Harry’s hospital bed, wanting all of those same wants right back, I had never known. All my life I had been alone, and suddenly I was not. Suddenly I was someone else’s life and they were mine. And it left me entirely speechless.

“Okay,” I breathed simply.

And he took me in his arms and kissed me like we’d never kissed before and once more, I fell in love all over again. And I was sure that every time we kissed, it would happen again. And again and again and again. For as long as we could.

Even as we healed.