Five

It had been days. Weeks, actually.

Liam sighed as he took several swigs from his water bottle in the corner of the small room, rehearsals having just finished and all of the boys taking a breather before heading back to their rooms. Louis clapped Liam on the back quietly and gave him a nod, before swinging an arm around Niall’s shoulders and walking with him out of the rehearsal room. But Liam glanced over his shoulder to see Harry sitting down in the opposite corner, still slumped over like he had been three minutes ago, not having really moved.

Liam frowned; tonight was the last night of this leg of the tour. The press and media were still bloodthirsty and there were a lot of people left to reassure that the band wasn’t going anywhere. But Liam was determined to see everything through. Tonight would be a big night in reminding people that One Direction still had years of music to make before they’d be closing up shop.

“Hazza,” he said, stepping across the room, “Harry, you alright?” Harry’s shoulders shrugged and he nodded, letting his hand fall from where it’d been holding his forehead.

“Yeah. M’fine,” he replied, clearing his throat.

“You don’t look fine, mate,” Liam retorted, managing a small smile as he came around the chair and sat down across from his best friend - one of the three, that is. “She’s still not out of her room, is she?”

Harry reluctantly met Liam’s eyes and heaved a breath, grimacing as he shook his head. “She hasn’t spoken a word to anyone since that stupid call. I never should’ve let her believe she could change his mind…” Harry frowned heavily and stared down at his half-empty water bottle.

“Hey, don’t get down on yourself. You know any one of us would’ve jumped at the thought of Zayn changing his mind. But he wasn’t going to budge, and that’s okay. She would’ve done that with or without your advice, Harry.”

The long-haired boy in front of Liam shook his head and looked back up, “What are we going to do? If she leaves, this band really will fall apart, and it’ll be on me. We need her to believe in us, Liam.”

“I know we do.” Liam was completely aware of how important it was that Farrah didn’t give up on them - but he also had a lot more faith in them than Harry did, and why that exactly was he’d never know.

“I don’t know what to do. She won’t talk to me,” Harry finally admitted, “It’s like she thinks that if she lets me speak, I’m gonna tell her we’re breaking up.”

Liam paused, thinking about his reply, furrowing his brows, when Harry quickly followed up his words with a, “The band, I mean. The band breaking up.” Liam’s lips let a small chuckle through and he smiled, nodding his head.

“I knew what you meant.” Harry’s eyes were grateful as they met Liam’s. “Well how about if I talk to her? You know I won’t let her do any of this not talking stuff, just let me see her.”

Eventually, Harry agreed, and Liam was following him down the hall to Farrah’s room with his shoulders back and chin held high.

Inside of the dark, blacked-out hotel room, Farrah lay buried in the covers of her bed, her head beneath her pillow and her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Her hair was matted and poorly combed, her pajamas were stained on the thigh from some stray chinese food, and every muscle in her body ached. She hadn’t wanted to face anyone since Naughty Boy invaded her conversation with Zayn three weeks before. She wasn’t coping well.

She kept running that whole mess of a day through her mind. The announcement early in the morning; Zayn’s tearful goodbye; Niall’s drunken sloshing about and Harry bandaging her hand after she and the nearest wall had had a minor disagreement. But most of all, what she remembered was the sudden sinking feeling in her gut when she realized that not only had Zayn left the band without notice or a fair goodbye, but had lied about his reasons for leaving, jumping straight into producing new music with someone else before things had even really come out.

It hurt, more than anything, that he hadn’t really spoken with the boys in those three weeks, either; with the exception of a few short, sharp discussions over text, tweet, and one phonecall, Zayn had gone on a very real radio silence. The few words each boy had shared with him were not ones of friendship and support, but of a complete inability to understand why things had unfolded the way they did, and an unwillingness to go about “figuring things out” for at least some kind of while.

She would’ve been okay with the farewell if it had been on good terms.

At least, she was promising herself that each morning - or afternoon - or evening.

Waking up was just another reason to fall back asleep at this point.

“Farrah Avery, you open up this door right now please,” a certain, very thick Wolverhampton voice spoke through the door. Farrah’s brows furrowed and she let out a groan into the bedsheet beneath her pillow, clutching it tighter to the back of her head. “Farrah, it’s Liam. Open up.”

“No,” she mumbled, sniffling into the bedsheet. God, not again. How did she even have tears left?

“Seriously, if you don’t open up, I’m going to get a security guard and come in there anyway. Please, Fanny, open the door so we can talk.” There was a long pause before voices were whispering just outside her door. She suddenly heard a faint whisper in Liam’s voice, “Seriously? …. You have … To her door? … Why do…. have this, you shouldn’t… this.” There was a fast buildup in volume between their two childish, arguing voices, until just as quickly as they’d gotten louder, they silenced, a key card being slid through her door’s lock.

She groaned, wishing she hadn’t given Harry a copy of her key. She’d made a nasty habit of getting two keys at every hotel they’d been to, just so Harry could drop by and come for a cuddle when he wanted to. But now it was backfiring severely.

“Alright, go on, I’ll see you at soundcheck. Yes, she’ll be fine. Let me han- Yes, Harry. Go.” A reply was grumbled by Harry’s groggy voice and then the door was shut, Liam’s feet padding into the dark room. “Jesus, Fanny, it’s two in the afternoon, the sun is bright as hell out there. Is there a reason you’re living in a batcave?”

Farrah chose to ignore him, sniffling once again and curling into the fetal position on her bed. He rolled his eyes and went to the windows, forcing open the black-out curtains to reveal an incredible view, beautiful sunlight streaming in. “See? Isn’t that the best?” Liam turned to the ball of blankets and limbs on Farrah’s bed, sliding one hand into the pocket of his oversized basketball trunks.

“Liam, I don’t wanna talk,” Farrah said, her voice raw as she lifted her head from under the pillow just enough to meet his eyes. “Please?”

Liam frowned at her and stepped forward, sitting himself down onto the bed. “Why on earth not? It isn’t that bad, you know, you don’t have to be holed up in here just because Zayn’s an actual arseface.”

Farrah weakly shrugged her shoulders and let her head back down. “He may be an actual arseface, but he’s also an arseface that made a complete fool out of me, Liam…”

“And how do you suppose he did that?” Liam asked, standing and going to the room’s small bathroom. Farrah followed him in confusion with her eyes, finally setting her head on top of the actual pillow and watching him curiously. Her eyes were bloodshot and rung with red; overall, she looked like… Well, Liam thought to himself. She looked like hell.

Farrah didn’t answer, just watching him silently and trying to figure out how to word her reply only to come up with no real solutions. He came back to her bed and sat down, a comb and some detangling spray in his hands. “You know,” Liam chuckled, “Between you and Harry, this detangling stuff eats up half the tour budget.”

Farrah, for the first time in weeks, felt a small, almost unnoticeable grin crack over her lips, and she ducked her head into the pillow. “Now come on and sit up.”

Hesitantly, she sat herself up and turned her body until her back was facing him, wincing as he started the enormous task of untangling her hair.

After a while of Liam spraying her hair and combing through it, Farrah found her words. “You know, he always used to b-be this big advocate for how things went with you guys.”

Liam just mumbled an “mhm”.

“He was always the one saying how amazing it was to have been put in a group, because he couldn’t possibly imagine having to go it alone.” She sighed heavily. “And when that idiot producer walked into his house, it was just this massive slap in the face. Like he’d been sitting there planning all of this for months and just used the whole issue with that girl to get out of waiting for the contract to end.”

Liam slowly nodded his head, one hand comfortingly rubbing up and down her upper arm. “It did feel like that, if I’m honest,” he replied softly, still combing her hair.

After a while, the pain from all of her knots subsided and Farrah focused on Liam caring for her as she tried to articulate her feelings about everything Zayn had done and been doing. “And to think he kept me in the dark for so long, like it didn’t matter to him how I felt about it, or even worse, like I wouldn’t have supported him if he’d just told me how he’d been feeling. It felt like he didn’t even know me to begin with, like he thought I was the kind of person to not want what was best for him.”

“But you do, Fanny,” Liam said, setting the comb down once her hair was brushed through and moving to sit in front of her. “You have the best interests of everyone you’ve ever met at heart.”

Farrah managed a small smile and shrugged. “But he didn’t seem to think so.”

“Farrah, this is bigger than that. Zayn had every right to do what he did. He’d been in the studio a couple of times before with that Naughty Guy person. They already had a rapport with each other. And he’d told us a long time ago, but we didn’t want to tell you until it was a for sure thing. And you know from making that call with Harry that you were not the only one of us all who thought you could change Zayn’s mind…”

Farrah hung her head and began picking at the hotel comforter.

“Just, do me a favor. Come to the show tonight. I want you to really see what four members of One Direction looks like. I can’t promise you it will be the same, but I can promise you it’ll be better. Because now, there isn’t one of us up there wishing he was somewhere else.” Liam paused only briefly. “Because now, we all want to be on that stage more than anything else.”

Liam looked down at her, at his friend of five years, of someone who had gotten them through everything, worked so hard to help them get to where they were, laughed with them, cried with them, sang with them at the very tops of her lungs and cheered them on no matter how much else she had to deal with. She’d been there for them, and they’d done their best to be there for her. But he wasn’t sure if she really realized how important she was to them, how much a part of each of them she really was. He pursed his lips and stared down at her, and suddenly desperate for her to regain her faith in them, he mumbled, “Farrah, I… I guess what I’m really trying to say is… It’s far from over.”

Farrah let the words sink in and slowly looked up into Liam’s eyes. He’d been such a close friend to her for so long, and she was hit with a wall of gratitude for what he was doing for her. She sighed softly and leaned forward, letting her head rest on his chest.

“I don’t know if I can yet, Li,” she whispered, “I don’t know how to imagine a One Direction without all five of you together.”

“But imagine this; now you’ll have double the albums to look forward to,” Liam spoke confidently, “What with us putting out one per year and I have no doubt Zayn will do the same. It’s like two Christmases.” Her brows fell low over her eyes and she sat up, giving Liam the least amused facial expression he’d ever seen. He couldn’t help but burst into laughter, grinning widely at her and shrugging his shoulders, “I’m serious!”

“Yes, well, you may be serious, but I am seriously reconsidering all of my life choices right now, Payno.” She had a small smile on her lips as she said her words, folding her hands in her lap.

He just looked at her, unrelenting, and she knew she was going to give in. “...Ugh. Liaammm,” Farrah whined, pouting and letting both hands run down over her face dramatically. He just laughed again and shook his head, sliding off of the bed and standing to his feet.

“C’mon, Navarro, you haven’t got much time to… Glamorous..ify… yourself.” Farrah stared at him in confusion, a single brow raised as she hesitantly took his hand.

“Do I even want to ask what you thought you were trying to say?” she teased, smiling softly as she came to her feet.

Liam rolled his eyes and pointed towards her bathroom. “Just go shower, you smell like three day old Chinese and stinky socks,” he deadpanned, “I’ll have Lou come up immediately.”

“But-” she began to protest, but he shook his head.

“Nope!” he interrupted, grabbing her by the shoulders and shoving her into the bathroom, “No buts.”

“Damnit, Liam,” she grumbled as he shut the door behind her, dusting off his hands as if his work here was done and smiling to himself with satisfaction.

“Shower, smelly girl!” he ordered, turning and heading out of her room. He’d make sure she could see what he saw; a new opportunity for the band to grow and become what it was always meant to. Or, in less stuffed-up terms, One Direction becoming something greater than it ever was.

Turning back by the door, Liam glanced once more over the disheveled room; he sighed softly and thought for that moment, God, I hope this works.