Collide, Ignite

When Reilly woke up in the morning, she and Niall had switched sides of the bed. This was something that had happened before, but she still wasn't exactly sure how, considering neither of them had gotten up during the night. She, also, was unable to move much. Niall's face was pressed to her neck and his slow, deep breaths were tickling her skin. His arm lay lazily across her hips, and his leg was tangled with hers.

She smiled to herself, having forgotten after so many years what it was like to wake up next to Niall. It was a feeling of being where she belonged, and before it had been terrifying. That wasn't quite the case anymore. She managed to move her head the slightest bit so she was able to press a soft kiss on the top of his head. Then, after some time, she reached up with the arm that was underneath him and let her fingers dance through his soft hair.

It didn't take long at all for his breathing pattern to change. It sped up some, and then he let out a low groan. "What're the chances of you goin' back to sleep?" he mumbled, his voice hoarse from sleep and his Irish accent more prominent than ever.

"No chance," she replied with a quiet giggle. "But if you get off me, I can leave you to finish your sleep," she said softly.

Niall groaned again and his arm twitched. His hand closed around Reilly's hip and he pulled her even closer to him, breathing in her scent and smiling against her neck. "No chance," he said back to her. His lips moved against her skin when he spoke. A shiver ran down her spine and he smiled again into her neck. "Haven't slept that well in ages," he said.

Reilly shivered again and his hand left her hip, his arm snaking around her waist. He slid his other arm underneath her and held her close to him. Both her arms wrapped around his neck. "Me either," she whispered back to him.

His smile widened and he breathed out a laugh, but for a long time did not say anything. Then, finally, he rolled so he was on top of her and slipped his arms from around her, pushing himself up on them. Her arms loosened but did not fall from around his neck. Keeping himself propped up on one elbow, Niall pushed Reilly's hair away from her face. "You're beautiful," he said.

Pink tinted Reilly's cheeks, and she slid one hand from the back of his neck to his cheek. "So are you," she replied. She stared up at him, wanting with every fiber of her being for him to kiss her. But from the look in his eyes, she could see that he was not going to. "I'm guessing you're going to say that we have to talk about this," she said, moving her hand to the back of his neck again, and Niall nodded. "That's why you have me pinned to the bed." He nodded again.

"Can't run away from me this way," he explained. She smiled softly at him. He had a point, and she understood his reason for saying it, but she wanted him to know that she wasn't going to run away. She didn't want to run anymore. Unfortunately, that was not the conversation they were about to have, and she had to wonder if it would change anything even if they did. "We shouldn't make a habit of this just yet," Niall said after several beats of silence. They both knew it, but neither really wanted to be the one to say it.

They both knew it, but that didn't stop the sinking feeling in Reilly's stomach as the words left Niall's mouth and met her ears. Still, she nodded in agreement. "I know," she said. "I know I shouldn't have come down here last night. I just," she paused and let out a quiet sigh. She tried to look away from him, but he followed her eyes. "I really wanted to be next to you," she said finally. "Is that wrong?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Naill moved his head slowly from side to side. "No. It's not wrong. Told you I wanted you next me, also," he said. Something flashed across his face but Reilly couldn't read it. Suddenly he seemed almost hesitant. And then, after a moment, he rolled off her. Reilly's arms fell to the bed and she rolled on her side to look at him.

"Hey," she said, and after a long moment he met her eyes again. "What's wrong?" she asked. Worry creased her forehead. Her heart started pounding hard inside her chest. "Is it-" she paused. She was going to say is it me? but the lump that had formed in her throat stopped her. The inches between them suddenly felt like miles, but Reilly had no idea what she might have done to put them there.

He was quiet for a long time. And then even when he spoke it came out so softly that Reilly could barely hear him through the sound of her rushing blood was making in her ears. "You should probably go get that breakfast everyone's expectin' started, yeah?" he suggested.

Silence settled in the room around them but inside Reilly's brain was chaos. Thoughts of how she was, once again, ruining things before they even started filled her mind. Tears welled up behind her eyes but she blinked them away. "What?" she asked, her voice barely audible, but louder than ever in her own ears.

"Just, you said last night you make a massive breakfast when everyone stays over. Should probably get that goin' before everyone's up, right?" he asked. She barely hummed in response, fearful that words would release the waterfalls behind her eyes. "May I use your shower?" he inquired easily. Almost too easily.

She merely nodded and then sat up slowly, sucking in a long breath as she did so and then released it slowly. "There's clean towels in the closet next to the bathroom upstairs," she said. Her voice came out surprisingly steady considering her insides were a wreck. She slid out of the bed and crossed the room. The doorknob was cold against her skin when she grasped it and pulled open the door. "I'm sorry for whatever I did wrong," she said without turning back to look at him. "Really sorry," she finished. She could hear Niall let out a soft sigh as she pulled closed the door behind her but didn't bother waiting to see if he would say anything.

Feeling suddenly overwhelmed, she was blinking back tears again as she entered the kitchen. So wrapped up in her thoughts, she failed to notice that there was already someone in there and nearly jumped out of her skin when a gravelly voice uttered a thick good morning greeting.

"Jesus Christ," she breathed, her hand flying up to her chest to cover her erratically beating heart. She drew in a long breath, slowly and held it for just a moment, then let it out slowly and lifted her eyes. "Sorry," she apologized. "Didn't see you."

Harry's gaze was sleepy and quizzical. He reached out and gently grabbed her arm where it was bent at the elbow and pulled Reilly toward him, wrapping his long arms around her slender form. "What's wrong?" he asked. She shook her head against his chest and kept her arms at her side. "Don't give me that," he said. "I can tell something has you upset." She shook her head again. "Reilly, come on," he pressed.

This time she took the tiniest step back and slipped her arms between herself and Harry and gave him a firm push backward. His arms dropped from around her and he stumbled backward a couple steps, a look of shock blanketing his face. "I'm fine," she snapped. "I just woke up and didn't see you when I came in here." He raised an eyebrow at her tone, which did not go unnoticed. "Excuse me for not wanting to be interrogated in my own house. Got enough of that from Owen the last month of our relationship, I don't need it from you, too."

By then both Harry's eyebrows were raised as high as they could possibly go. "Okay," he drawled, extending the end of the word. "But, see, you don't usually snap at me for no reason. I mean, I can take it. If you're really that upset about something you can snap at me all you like. You could come over here and punch me in the stomach repeatedly if it would make you feel better."

"Don't tempt me," she interrupted, earning a quiet chuckle from Harry.

"Go on then," he said, gesturing with both hands for her to do it if it was what she really wanted. "Point is, I'm just trying to help. I know what tired Reilly looks like, and I know what happy Reilly looks like, and I know what sad Reilly looks like. And if you really don't feel like talking at the moment you can just say that, but please don't say you're fine when you're not. It's not helping anyone, most of all yourself."

Reilly let out a long, heavy sigh. He was right. Having the kind of relationship she did with Harry meant that he was going to be right about a lot of things but she didn't always want him to be. She wanted him to let her pretend that she was fine, because if she could pretend for long enough she might start to believe it. Though, somewhere deep down she knew that was where a good deal of her problems lie.

"Had a cuddle with Niall last night, did you?" he asked. She sighed and nodded at him, not bothering to ask how he knew. It was probably written all over her face and in her eyes. It probably showed in her body language. She dropped down onto a chair at the table and put her face in her hands. "Did something happen, Reilly?" he inquired gently.

Keeping her face in her hands, Reilly shook her head. "No. Nothing like what you're thinking anyway-"

"I'm not thinking anything," he interrupted.

She sighed again and lifted her head so she could look at him. "Everything was fine. We agreed that we shouldn't fall back into old habits and then it was like he was a million miles away from me. I don't know what happened, Harry. I don't know what I did," she told him. There was a hint of desperation in her voice that caused Harry's forehead to crease deeply.

"I don't think you did anything," he said. Reilly opened her mouth to say something but Harry put up a hand to indicate that he was not finished. "I think you don't understand quite how difficult this whole thing is for Niall."

"Well maybe I would if he would talk to me," she suggested snappily. Harry sighed heavily but didn't seem to know how to respond to that. In turn, Reilly sighed and began to feel guilty for taking her frustrations out on Harry. "I just want he and I to be okay, you know?" To that, Harry nodded, but still didn't say anything in response.

Instead, he proposed, "How about I help you with breakfast?" Reilly looked up at him with a nod and accepted the hand he offered to help her up from the chair. There was a tiny smile pulling up the corners of her lips at the wide grin he was giving her. He gave her hand a squeeze. "You'll be okay, you and Niall," he assured her. Coming from most other people, she probably wouldn't have believed it. But Harry was rarely wrong about things like this, and even if she had some doubts, at the very least he was giving her a reason to hope that whatever had just happened in the guest room had an explanation, or was possibly even just a fluke.

It wasn't long before the smell of breakfast was waking people. Louis was the first to join Reilly and Harry in the kitchen. It was entirely probable that he was more of a menace in the morning than any other time of the day. Instead of offering to help, he kept snitching little bits of food, to the point that Reilly had to smack his hand away several times and only got him to stop by finally slapping the back of his hand with the spatula she was using.

By that time Liam had joined them. He'd tried warning Louis about the look Reilly was getting but he wouldn't listen. Cara and Aimee joined shortly after and eventually Niall came down from the shower with Lexie on his heels. She was making faces at his back when they entered the crowded kitchen, but no one other Reilly seemed to notice.

Nobody was in a rush to leave after breakfast was over. They all lounged around the house chatting, drifting in and out of light sleep, half paying attention to a TV show marathon someone had turned on. Then late morning slowly turned to early afternoon and the group started to thin as people began to trickle out.

Reilly had gone to switch a load of laundry and came back to the living room to find only Niall was left. She looked tentatively around the room before finally deciding to sit at the opposite end of the couch, where she only stayed for a moment before getting back up and heading into the kitchen. To her surprise, someone, probably Harry, had already cleaned up the kitchen, giving her no excuse for staying in there to avoid the tension between her and Niall.

With a sigh she left the kitchen but did not go back to the living room. Instead she headed upstairs for her room. It, along with her bathroom, had also been straightened up. If this was Harry's doing, he had gone to great lengths to make sure she had no reason for being in a room other than the one where Niall was. Just then, she felt the butterflies in her stomach and she turned to see him standing in her doorway.

"Alright, Darlin'?" he asked.

Reilly stared at him for a long moment and then rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'm great," she said, sarcasm more than evident in her tone.

Niall mostly ignored it, but scratched the back of his neck while looking somewhat nervous. "You think Maisie is awake?" he asked. Reilly shrugged. "Thought maybe we could call her early today."

Without a word Reilly grabbed her phone and sent a message to Zachary. It only took a few moments for him to reply. "Yeah, Zachary says she's awake and ready to talk whenever we are," she said as she set down her phone and then grabbed her computer. "Downstairs?" she asked but Niall shrugged.

"Or we could do it here," he suggested.

A dry laugh escaped her. "Nice try," she said. She tried to slip past him but he blocked the doorway completely. "What are you doing?" she demanded. She didn't even attempt to hide the irritation in her voice.

"I'm sorry about earlier," he said. A sigh slipped past Reilly's lips at the apology and a huge weight seemed to lift from her shoulders. "It wasn't you. I had to stop myself doin' something I shouldn't. It wasn't easy. I'm sorry about the way I did it." He reached out and brushed a few stray strands of hair away from Reilly's face. Her cheek tingled underneath his fingertips. "You didn't deserve that."

She sucked in her bottom lip and shrugged. "I would have preferred if you'd just made some dumb joke about," she shrugged again, "I don't know. Anything."

"Noted," he said, but didn't say anything else.

Reilly watched him for a moment and then sighed softly and turned back into her room. She appreciated the apology but was slightly frustrated by the lack of conversation they were having. There were things on her mind, but she didn't know if she could say them yet. Or, she didn't know how to say them yet. Why was it so hard for her to tell him that she wanted to be with him?

She settled onto the bed and opened her laptop. Niall sat next to her, but left inches between them so their arms didn't touch. Their legs didn't touch either. Once again he was right next to her but might as well have been on the other side of the city, for all the distance the things they were thinking but not saying was putting between them.

As she opened Skype to call Zachary, a thought popped into her head and she did nothing to stop it slipping out of her mouth. "Do you ever feel like maybe we don't really know the adult versions of each other?" she asked. She could feel him turn to look at her, feel his eyes on the side of her face, waiting for her to turn to look back at him. But she didn't. And he waited long enough that he didn't get a chance to answer before Maisie appeared on the screen in front of them.

"Hi!" the little girl exclaimed, waving excitedly at Reilly and Niall. Niall shifted his glance to the computer and smiled warmly.

"Hello, Little One," he greeted her. "How're ya?" he asked.

The two chatted back and forth for a few minutes while Reilly sat quietly. She was in view of the camera and therefore Maisie knew she was there. Yet, she had not said one word, and it hadn't gone unnoticed by her younger sister, who finally specifically addressed her.

"Reilly, what's wrong?" she asked.

Reilly blinked and shook her head the tiniest bit. "Hmm?" she asked.

"You didn't say anything, and you look sad," Maisie said. "Actually, you both look sad," she observed.

They glanced at each other quickly and then looked back at the screen. Reilly forced a smile. "I'm fine, Little One," she said, but the way it came out forced wasn't very assuring at all, another thing that Maisie noticed.

"What are you sad about?" she pressed. Reilly didn't know what to say. She couldn't very well tell her sister that she was sad about Niall, not with him sitting right next to her. Not with how much that little girl loved him. It would be unfair to everyone. "I wish I could hug you," Maisie said when Reilly didn't answer her.

The forced smile on Reilly's face turned sad and her heart started to ache and the heartfelt words of her little sister. "I wish I could hug you, too, Baby. I miss you tons," she said. She stole a glance from the corner of her eye at Niall. "I'll be back in a just a minute, okay?"

Without waiting for a response, she passed the computer to Niall and slid off the bed. She stepped into the bathroom and shut the door behind her. Her stomach was in knots, and she gripped the edge of the counter so hard that her knuckles turned white. Her breathing had become erratic at best and her heart was beating faster than ever. She drew in a long, slow breath and then let it out just as slowly.

She did this several times until her racing mind and racing pulse began to slow. But the moment she reached for the door knob, they sped up again. Feeling defeated, she sunk down to the floor and resumed her breathing exercises with her face in her hands. She didn't know how long she stayed like that, but she took her time, waiting for her mind to clear and her heart to beat as normally as it could with Niall just on the other side of the door. She stood again and splashed some cold water on her face before returning to her bedroom.

When she reclaimed her spot on the bed, she sat closer to Niall than before. Their upper arms brushed and Reilly felt it throughout her entire body. Maisie asked again if she was okay, saying she'd been gone for a long time, and Reilly did her best to smile as she responded, once again, that she was fine.

The call didn't last much longer after she got back, leaving Reilly to wonder just how long she'd been in the bathroom trying to get her anxiety under control. It was as though Niall could tell because the second he closed her laptop, he reached an arm around her back and pulled her to him. She rested her head against his shoulder and he kissed the top of her head, murmuring softly to her that she was okay, and, again, that he was sorry. He held her for several minutes and gave no indication that he had any plans to let her go any time soon.

The longer they sat there, the heavier Reilly's eyelids grew, until they finally fell shut and she dropped into a light sleep. Her mind went over several different scenarios before she was able to force her eyes open again. Niall's arm was still around her, holding her in a way that was firm but also gentle.

She moved to sit up straight and he let his arm fall from around her. "Sorry," she mumbled, her voice hoarse from her impromptu nap.

"What for?" he asked.

"Falling asleep on you like that. I know we said," she paused, "I didn't mean to," she told him.

Niall only shrugged. "I know those anxiety attacks take a lot from ya. And anyway, it was only a few minutes. Don't worry about it," he said. Reilly nodded and scooted a few inches away from him. "Gave me some time to think about what you said, that maybe we don't know each other who we are now. Don't think I agree with that," he told her.

"You don't?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No, I don't. I think we do know each other. And I also think maybe we're thinking too much about things," he said.

"You do?" she asked.

"Yes, I do," he said. She raised an eyebrow at him and he went on. "I want to give you whatever space you need, but I don't want you to feel like I don't want to be around you, or that I think you're crazy, or that you can't put your head on my shoulder and fall asleep if you're having a hard day. I don't want you think you have to ask before you call. I don't want either of us to have to second guess the things we do around each other. It's like you said last night, every conversation doesn't have to be heavy. We can be just normal friends," he said, but then quickly added, "er, whatever we are."

The corners of Reilly's mouth twitched upward. "We're friends," she agreed, but then after a moment shrugged. "Maybe not just friends, but I think it's an appropriate title for the time being." And just as she said that, her stomach growled loudly enough that Niall heard it. His eyes widened and Reilly's cheeks tinted pink immediately, though she did her best to laugh it off. "And as friends," she said, "I think we should go get food because apparently I'm starving."

With a chuckle, Niall got off the bed and headed out of the bedroom. Reilly quickly slipped her feet into a pair of boots and grabbed a sweater from her closet and followed him downstairs. It wasn't until he was standing by the door looking at her with a grin that she realized the sweater she had just put on was the one Niall had given her for her birthday.

Before he could say anything, she jingled her keys. "I'll drive," she said. "I need to go to the supermarket after we eat. Breakfast was basically the last the food I had in my kitchen," she told him. Niall groaned quietly and she shot him a look. "Oh, okay, you don't have to come with me if you don't want. I have no problem getting food by myself," she shrugged.

"No, it's fine," he said quickly. "I actually might need some things myself," he added as he pulled open the front door and held out his arm as if to say after you.