Collide, Ignite

Irish scenery passed by as Reilly stared out the window of the car that Liam had hired to pick her up at the airport. The colors of Ireland any time of year, but especially in winter had not yet ceased to amaze her. Everything looked so crisp and full of life, a stark contrast to how she felt.

The knots in her stomach tightened with every mile. She had hardly slept the night before, partly due to her plane leaving London at five in the morning. It was mostly, however, trying to figure out how to talk to Niall. There was so much she had opened up to Louis, Liam, Harry and Zayn about, but she'd done it over the course of the last five years. She had less than even five days to try to tell all of that and more to Niall.

The biggest problem was where to start. She wasn't sure where the beginning was, which made it difficult to start from there. And starting at the end would unearth a lot of hurt feelings right off the bat. Niall was already hurt, according to Liam, and bringing up those memories might make him shut her out completely.

She wanted to have some kind of idea of how things might go, but as the car slowed and eventually stopped, she knew she'd run out of time. The driver got out of the car and walked around to open her door. She stepped into the cool Irish air and breathed in deeply, trying to calm the racing of her heart and fluttering butterfly wings in her stomach. The driver wished her a happy Christmas as he handed her bag to her.

Niall's house loomed in front of her. It was not his father's house, the house she'd been to five years prior. He had bought his own home in Mullingar. She took a few more deep breaths, though it did nothing to soothe her frazzled nerves, and walked slowly to the front door.

It was just before eight in the morning, and Niall would still be sleeping. She stared at the buzzer for a full minute before everything about pressing it started to feel like the worst idea in the world. Instead, she pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed Liam's number. When he didn't answer, she called again. He still didn't answer, but the third time, he finally did.

"'Lo?" he said quietly.

"I can't do this," she said, forgoing a standard greeting. "This was a terrible idea," she continued. "My stomach is in knots and turning somersaults at the same time, I can barely breathe, I know he's still sleeping, and I have no idea what I'm going to say to him. I can't do this, Liam. I just can't."

"Reilly, calm down," he said softly. "You're giving yourself a panic attack. Stop thinking so hard about it. It's Niall. You've never said it, but I know you've wanted to talk to him and tell him everything for a long time now. I could see it eating away at you every time you saw him, and for days afterward. Nothing will change if you don't talk to him, you'll just continue feeling awful inside. You can do this. More importantly, you need to do it, because keeping everything you want to say to him inside of you isn't healthy," he told her.

Hot tears formed behind her eyes and her racing heart sped up. "I can't do it," she repeated.

"Yes, you can," he encouraged, but she didn't respond. "Reilly, where are you right now?" he asked.

"On his doorstep," she said quietly.

"Okay, you've made it this far," he said. "Just take one of those long, slow breaths you do when you start feeling the panic, then do another one," he said, talking her through her breathing exercise. "Have you done it?" he asked after a moment and she responded positively. "Now do another one." He paused. "Two more," he said, and waited another moment. "Now ring the bell," he instructed.

Reilly lifted her hand, but dropped it before she pressed the button. "What if he doesn't hear it?" she asked.

Liam chuckled quietly into the phone. "He will, trust me," he said. "Just ring the bell."

Once again, she lifted her hand and extended her arm toward the door bell, and pressed the cool metal button. Her hand shook as she retracted it, and she sighed shakily into the phone.

"Take another breath, Reilly, and then hang up the phone," he said. "It's going to be alright. You can do this."

She did as instructed, but not before saying goodbye to the person she'd called a brother for three and a half years. She continued her breathing exercise until she heard footsteps on the other side of the door. Her heart pounded inside her chest and the butterflies took flight again. The doorknob turned and the door opened, revealing a very sleepy, shirtless Niall.

He stared at her through squinted eyes for a long moment. "Reilly?" he said quietly, reaching up to rub the sleep from his eyes. "Some kind of sick joke, you showin' up at my door on Christmas mornin', don't ya think?"

His words were like a punch to the gut and all but knocked the wind out of her. Tears rushed to her eyes, but she blinked them back. This had been her fear. He didn't want to see her, and she couldn't blame him. She couldn't find any words to say, but she also couldn't convince her feet to carry her away. So, she just stood there staring at him, praying the tears wouldn't fall.

"What are ya doin' here?" he asked when she said nothing.

She breathed in deeply through her nose, and exhaled through her mouth, like they teach you do when you're running. Because she felt like she was in the middle of a marathon right then and was having a hard time catching her breath. "Liam," she said finally. Her voice shook as she uttered the simple response, and it wasn't a real explanation, but it was the only word she could form.

Niall sighed. "Figures," he said, pulling the door open the rest of the way. Reilly gave him a curious look. "Well, come inside. Can't just leave ya on the step. Come on," he said.

It was a little on the cold side in Niall's house, and not because the door had just been open for several minutes. He'd always kept his place that way. It had driven Reilly insane when they were younger, but it never bothered him. He always slept shirtless and would walk around the house the same way. Heat somehow seemed to radiate off his body.

It took Reilly back five years, to his room in the his old place in London. His comfortable bed where she would curl into his side underneath his warm blankets. The thought tugged at the knots in stomach and they loosened at the idea of being safe in Niall's embrace once again. But she quickly brought herself back to the present.

The ring on her finger began to feel heavy, and the knots in her stomach tightened even more than before. That wasn't a road she could go down again. She couldn't let herself fall back into old memories when she had a fiance to consider.

And with that being the case, she began to wonder what she was doing there in Ireland with Niall. She wondered why she owed Niall any explanation, why it mattered if he knew her reasons for doing what she'd done years before. But then he cleared his throat and she looked up at him, at the sadness behind his blue eyes, and the butterflies in her stomach fluttered furiously and her heart had been racing since before the car had even turned onto his street and her palms were getting a little sweaty and she was terrified of saying the wrong the thing to him and this wasn't just any person standing in front of her.

This was the boy who had brought her home one night when she was stumbling, blackout drunk outside a bar in London. This was the boy who had brought her toast and tea and told her that she threw up on his shoes but wasn't upset about it and sneakily gave back the money she'd given him to replace said shoes. This was the boy who had come to her apartment with food and beer when he barely knew her because she told him she'd had a bad day. This was the boy who let her cry into his shirt when she finally remembered why she'd gotten blackout drunk.

This was the boy who showed her places in London he liked, and not just because he liked them but because he thought she would also like them. This was the boy who took her to a soccer match, and watched movies all night with her. This was the boy who took her to Ireland for the first time. This was the boy who had gone to visit her mother's grave for her the first year she'd been away from home.

This was the boy who had come running to her side after she'd screamed at him and run away from him because he'd been told she needed someone. This was the boy who helped her decorate Harry's place for Christmas when she was there by herself for the holiday. This was the boy who brought her best friend to her because he knew, even though she never said it, that she needed her.

This was the boy who never pushed her into anything she wasn't ready for. This was the boy who always apologized first and had begged for forgiveness when they'd fought. This was the boy she'd made so many mistakes with, whose heart she'd broken so many times. This was the boy she broke her own heart over.

This was Niall.

This was Niall and she owed him every explanation a hundred times over, though no amount of words could ever make up for what she'd done to him. Nothing she could ever say or do could right all her wrongs, but maybe she could try to find a way to make up for some of them, somehow.

"What's Liam's reasoning behind all this?" he asked. His tone was cold and so was his gaze.

"He thought we should talk," she said softly, trying to hold back the tears that were once again pooling behind her eyes. "And I agree with him. I think I owe you an explanation. Or, a lot of explanations. Long ones," she told him, doing her best to keep her voice from wavering.

He stared hard at her, and she shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "What if I don't want to hear your long explanations?" he asked. "Huh? What if I don't even really want to look at you right now?"

Reilly breathed in sharply at the harsh tone in which he spoke. A tear slipped from her eye and she quickly wiped it away. If Niall was anything like he used to be, which she didn't doubt for a moment, he would feel awful about her crying, and she didn't want that. She didn't want him to have to console her when she deserved every venomous word he could think to say to her and then some. She had done this, and there was no reason he should feel the need to fix it.

"Then," she said, her voice significantly more shaky than before. She drew in a breath to try to even it out. "I guess, I should go," she breathed out. "I'm sorry for bothering you."

She wiped turned to leave, wiping away another rogue tear once her back was to him. But before she could get anywhere, his hand closed gently around her arm. Electricity shot through her body, leaving her skin tingling where he touched her. She wanted to yank her arm from his grasp, but she didn't. Instead, she turned slowly to face him.

His eyes were blazing with anger, which was a blatant contradiction to way he barely held onto her. His promise from years ago that he would never harm her echoed in her head, and in any other situation might have made her smile. But the way he was glaring down at her made it impossible to feel anything good.

"You made me feel like a fool the other night. Like utter shit," he told her. "Just went on and on, and let me go on and on and never once mentioned to me that you were getting married to someone. Just conveniently left that out when you were telling me what you'd been up to. For what? So you could have a laugh later on? Like, oh, Niall's such an idiot." His voice had gotten louder with each sentence and he still held onto Reilly's arm but hadn't tightened his grip even the tiniest bit.

"It wasn't like that," she said quietly.

"Then what was it like?" he yelled, but she stayed quiet. "What was it like, Reilly? You said you wanted to talk, to give me explanations. Well then explain what it was like at Louis' birthday." She could feel his anger growing when she still didn't respond. Seeing him so angry was breaking her heart, but she was having trouble finding her words. "Tell me," he hollered.

The tears behind her eyes finally broke free, spilling down her face at break-neck speed. "It was like I was eighteen again," she screamed at him. She knew she didn't have a right to yell, but she couldn't help it. She drew in a deep breath to calm herself before she continued. "It was like we were Reilly and Niall from before I screwed everything up a hundred times. We were talking for two hours and it felt like barely five minutes, and I would have talked to you for another two hours, and two more hours after that if Harry hadn't come in and interrupted us," she told him, being more honest with him than she'd been with anyone in three days. "It felt like the last five years never happened, even though I was telling you about all the things I'd been doing."

"That's not an excuse," he told her.

"Yeah, I know," she said, tearing her eyes away from his hard stare. She closed them for a moment, trying to regain her composure before opening them again and refocusing them on the floor. "You must have known I was seeing someone," she said, which was also not an excuse.

He finally let go of her arm and ran his hand through his hair, letting out a sigh. "The boys made mention of it. Guess I didn't realize how serious it was. Since you always told me you didn't have time to be with me, guess I thought that was a kind of blanket statement," he told her. He'd lowered his voice, but the words were still laced with malice. "You said me being gone all the time and you being so busy in school were some of the reasons you couldn't have a boyfriend. What makes him different? Doesn't seem like he's around, either."

Reilly sighed heavily. "Owen," she began, watching the color drain from Niall's face.

"He's Irish?" he asked, cutting her off.

She only nodded before continuing, still unable to meet his gaze again. "He is around," she said. Niall cut her off again.

"Really?" he said with a dry laugh. "He wasn't at Lou's birthday. He obviously wasn't with you in Wolverhampton if you ended up here. Have you even told him where you are?" he spat.

Reilly shook her head at him. Her heart was starting to ache, and she wasn't sure if it was from the incessant pounding, or from Niall's anger, or a combination of the two. "He was away on business, and then he went home for Christmas with his family," she said.

"Here in Ireland?" he questioned.

She shook her head again. "No, is family lives near Newcastle. Why are you so interested in my relationship? What does it matter if we spend Christmas together or not? Quite frankly, it's none of your business," she said curtly, finally looking up at him.

His eyes widened and the fire behind them blazed. His anger seemed to renew itself, but he managed to keep his Irish temper in check when he spoke. "You know, I think I liked you a lot better five years ago when you were more shy and totally embarrassed by everything. At least then it was more believable that you didn't hurt people on purpose," he said.

Without another word, he walked away, leaving her standing in the entryway of his house. The silence that settled around her all to quickly was deafening, so heavy that it felt like it might snap her in half. Inside her chest her furiously beating heart shattered into millions of tiny pieces, and tears rained down her face once again. Before now, she'd had no idea it was possible to lose someone you'd already lost when you'd never gotten them back.