Hiraeth

School was out for the summer. It was one of her earliest memories of the beach. If she closed her eyes and takes a breath, she could still smell the warm sand, feel the radiant sun on her skin, and hear the waves lapping at the shore. There was laughter and chatter all around her, and she was happy. That was what she remembered the most about that day - being happy. She smiled, laughing at Kylie, her puppy, watching him lounge on his tummy, sleepily under the sun.

Her father was sleeping on a towel, shaded by a red towel. He was wearing sunglasses. Her mother laid next to him on her belly, tanning as she read a magazine with disinterest. Still, Sam was happy, because she loved the ocean, the smell of salt in the air, and digging up shells for her collection at home. Yes, it was a good day for her, indeed.

Kylie barked and raced towards the receding tide, only to run back when she saw it coming back. Sam chased after her, giggling at the small little ball of fur. She'd been a birthday present from her parents, a little sandy brown bulldog with white patches, and was truly Sam's dearest and closest friend. She'd always been... well, not different, but not very popular at school. She liked it, liked going, liked learning new things, but she always felt a little left out.

Still, she had her dog, and her family, and she was happy with it, her little life. Granted, in her innocence, how couldn't she be happy? The farther she went out, the thinner the crowds became. She knew the beach, though, she'd been here before with her aunts, her grandparents... even school, once. So, Sam knew she wouldn't get lost, and even if she did, she'd be able to find her way back again.

Kylie ducked around a sand dune, and began to bark wildly. Sam adjusts her red one piece suit and scrambled after her, concerned. They were down the edge of the beach already, far from her parents. It made her feel uneasy.

"Oi, relax, Kylie," she heard a man say. He had... a different accent, for sure, and it made her frown. She peered behind the dune curiously, biting her bottom lip. Her parents told her to never speak to strangers, but he was petting Kylie, and he didn't seem all that mean, or scary. He was wearing a white shirt and some shorts, flipflops. He seemed like any ordinary adult.

When he looked at Sam, he smiled, slightly. He was tan, and tall, taller than her father. And a little skinny, lanky, like... like the beanstalks on her aunt Clara's farm. Her brown eyes stared at him, unsure. The sun beat down on them both, mid-day heat making her feel sweaty and hot, stuffy. Still, she found that she couldn't move.

Kylie was licking the man's cheek as he laughed, holding the chubby pup in his arms. Sam squinted at him. He seemed sketchy, really - but... if Kylie liked him, he must have been nice.

"Is this your puppy?" he asked, holding her up. Sam nodded, and he set her down. Kylie ran towards Sam and nosed at her ankles playfully, wagging her tail as her pink tongue hung out. She wanted to glare at him, and tried, but she was sure she really wasn't all that intimidating. "She's cute, but you should get her a leash, Sam."

"How do you know my name?" she called out, picking up her dog with a little bit of difficulty. She was so heavy, sometimes. The man simply shrugged and turned around, leaving smooth, even footprints in the tan sand. "Hey! Come back!" He turned a little and waved, pleasant and friendly. "Hey!"



Sam thought about that day at the beach quite often. She spent hours wondering who that man was. She could draw him from memory. And something inside her told her she knew him, but she didn't quite know how. She could feel it somewhere deep, like, fluttering little butterflies in her tummy that made her cheeks rosy and made her laugh.

He knew her name. He knew her puppy, or something about Kylie. Kylie hated strangers at first... and yet, when she had seen Harry, she had been more excited than she should have been. Like she knew him. But how could she know him if she'd never seen him? It was driving her crazy, making her go round and round in circles.

Still, she had never really told anyone about him, or how Kylie liked him. What was she supposed to say, anyway? Her parents wouldn't believe her. No one would, and she couldn't quite explain it, anyway. She had filed it away in her little mind as something that had happened once, and would only happen once. She didn't know him, or anyone who looked like him, or spoke with that funny accent like he did.

She didn't know if it was just a weird dream she'd had, but it felt so real - he was there, he was smiling, and laughing, and Kylie was barking and happy, and she could still feel the warm sand beneath her toes. It was real. She didn't know how, or why it had happened, but she knew something odd had transpired there. Could she figure it out? Not yet, but she would.

The next time she saw him, as she began to refer to the man from the beach, he was sitting on a bench in the park that she walked through every day on her way home from school. She knew the route by heart. She would walk down the block from school, then make a left and enter through the gates. She would follow the brick path through the park and come out through the other side, cross the street, then walk to her building. The doorman, Norman, would open the door and give her a small piece of chocolate, like always.

It was a good, solid routine, that had begun at the beginning of the school year, when she had begged her parents to let her walk to school alone. So far, nothing had happened to her, and sometimes, if the weather was bad, her grandfather came to get her in his convertible. (The top was up in the winter, obviously, but in the summer time, he would take her to the coast and drive with the top down, and they'd get ice cream and hamburgers.)

The park had large trees that loomed over her head, branches barren and heavy with fluffy white snow. It had snowed that morning on her way to school, and she remembered feeling a distinct, sharp chill in the air. Thankfully, however, there was a path cleared already, little balls of salt lining the sidewalk.

The gravel crunched underneath her black boots as she walked, listening to the CD player. It was the newest Britney Spears CD, and she had been so proud of herself for saving up enough money from her allowance to be able to buy it at the store down the street. Sam adjusted her headphones over her blue pom-pom hat, bobbing her head to the beat of the song.

He was sitting there, calm as could be, hands stuffed into the pockets of a black coat. He had a scarf, too, bright and eye catching. His boots were a little on the funky side, weird, to be sure, but if that made him comfortable, well. Okay.

Sam simply stopped in front of him and stared with a small squint. She pulled off her headphones and reached around to pause the music.

Don't talk to strangers. Say, "No touching!" Yell for an adult.

She knew that those were things to do when approached by or talked to by someone she didn't know, especially an adult who she didn't know. Sam knew better. But he wasn't scary, or mean. He was friendly. He was pretty nice, to be honest, or seemed to be. He smiled at her like no time at all had passed.

"Hello, Sam," he said pleasantly, fixing his scarf with nimble fingers. Her brown eyes stared at him unabashed, trying to figure him out again.

"Who are you?"

"It's very nice to meet you again," he said, extending his hand out. She stared at it. His nails were trimmed short, clean - his fingers were slender and smooth, skin creamy. Who was this guy, anyway? "My name is Harry Styles."

Harry. She made a face. What kind of weird name was that? Well, he seemed weird, so it would suit him, she supposed. Though he looked a little younger, and his hair was a little shorter than she remembered. But, yep, that was the man she'd met at the beach. Harry. His name was Harry. She shook his hand, red mittens covering her fingers as she did so. She sat next to him, warily, setting her backpack between them. He was odd. He wore rings on his fingers, and smelled like the fancy shop where her mother bought her father his dress shirts for work. And he was cold.

"Why are you here?"

"Just stopping by," he said, more in passing than anything. Passing by? What did that mean?

"Where were you?" Sam retorts, frowning. It seemed that the more Harry spoke, the more he confused her. Still, he was soothing, and kind. His voice was deep and rumbly, and made her cheeks rosy again. But it was cold, anyway, so he couldn't tell. "Where are you going?

"You sure ask a lot of questions, Sam." Harry pulled a mint out of his pocket which Sam took before he could unwrap, unwrapping it deftly. She popped it in her mouth and suckled. It tasted like... cherry. She smiled, pleased with herself. He laughed and leaned back against the bench. It was black, iron and solid. He pulled out another mint, but didn't open it, and just fiddled with it, instead. "You've always done that."

"What are you talking about?" She had only seen him once before. How would he know if she asked a lot of questions or not? Which, admittedly, she probably did. She liked to know how things worked, why they did. People were always yelling at her and telling her to stop asking so many questions, but she couldn't help herself. "Do you know me? I feel like I know you. Is that weird? I'm sorry. My mom says I need think before I say things but - " Sam stopped herself, blushing in earnest now out of embarrassment. She probably looked really silly and childish.

"I travel in time."

Sam almost choked on her hard candy, because she thought it was funny, and ridiculous, and the only people who really travel time are in movies and books, not real life. No, clearly Harry was loopy, and needed help. Because people didn't time travel. It was ­- well, the whole idea was stupid and she didn't believe him one bit.

"No, you don't. You're lying. No one travels in time. That's impossible. Why are you lying, Harry?" The wind picked up and she tugged on her hat, huffing softly. Her breath fogged, small little clouds leaving her lips.

"Am I? Very well. When you get home from school today, and I suggest you get going soon because you're already late, your mum is going to tell you she's going to have a baby. It'll be a boy. They'll name him Walter." Sam made a face. Her mother didn't seem to want to have another baby, and Sam rather liked being an only child.

"I don't believe you," Sam hissed, hopping off the bench. He offered her the other candy, which she took and stuffed into her pocket. "You're a liar, Harry Styles."

"Take care, Sam." He gave her a smile and small wave, like the last time she had seen him. Sam huffed and stormed away, stomping her little feet along the path. She pulled her headphones on, grumbling under her breath. She was going to tell her mother when she got home about the crazy man at the park. Her mother would surely know what to do.

When she turned around to scowl at him again, just a minute later, he was gone, again.

The problem was that Sam never quite put that plan into motion, mostly because her mother and father were home, dancing around the living room and grinning at one another excitedly. They sat her down and explained to her that her mother was indeed pregnant. They wouldn't know what the baby would be yet because it was too tiny, but... well.

Just as Harry had told her, her mother did have a boy, and his name was Walter, and he was born in the summertime, right after their Independence Day barbecue.

(Harry was at the hospital when Walter was born, too. He told her he told her so, and asked her if she believed him then, and she tried to shove him, irritated, but failed. As much as she hated to admit it, she had actually grown very excited at the prospect of the baby. She had felt him when he kicked in her mother's tummy, and he was all tiny and wrinkly in his blue blanket in the nursery. He was cute, for a baby. Harry laughed, smoothed back her hair and gave her another drop of candy, and then walked down the hallway, turned a corner, and disappeared, again. He had a habit of disappearing around Sam.)



Walter - or Wally, as Sam had begun to call him - really wasn't so bad. He cried quite a bit. And fussed. And her mother was a little grumpy because he wasn't letting her sleep well, and her father had quite a couple of pants and shirts messed up from how much he spit up and drooled. He was adorable little chunky baby, with big blue eyes like her father, and a quiet giggle. And he had dimples. And she loved him, terribly. He wasn't really annoying, yet. And he only threw up on her once, and that was because she didn't hold him the right way when she fed him.

Her parents were having a New Years' Eve party. It was a "grown up" party and Sam wasn't allowed to go. She thought it was very unfair. She was practically eight, which basically meant ten, which made her a grown up, or grown enough, anyway. Her parents had sent her to stay with her grandparents upstairs, with Wally. Wally was keeping her grandfather entertained while her grandmother baked, gnawing on his grandfather's index finger as the elderly man read the newspaper to him.

(Her grandfather literally read everything out loud. The cereal box, the mail, coupons from the store, the receipt from their groceries. He loved to read, and Wally always seemed soothed by him and his presence, and enjoyed his tone more than anything.)

Normally, Sam would have been excited. The ball was going to drop soon, and if she squinted, she could see it from her grandmother's living room window. She loved this time of year. The tree was still up, everything smelled like cookies and cake, and the snow outside was fluffy enough for snowball fights with some of the kids in her neighborhood. The windows were always foggy, which meant she could draw on them.

Her grandmother was on the phone, talking to her uncle, Ron. He lived in Alaska. On a fishing boat. Definitely a cool job. He had come home for Christmas with a brown beard, and bought the baby a hand carved mobile. Sam had gotten a postcard and a little glass bottle full of seashells and other things he'd found in the sea. Since her grandfather was preoccupied with telling Wally about why the latest Marmaduke comic was funny, he wasn't paying her much attention either.

They wouldn't miss her if she went home for, like, two minutes. She just wanted to get her bottle of shells and look at them again. Yep. She snuck out quickly and quietly, leaving the door ajar slightly. Sam raced down the stairs towards her own apartment, grinning at her ingenuity. She didn't have any shoes on, just her little stockings and a crushed velvet dress.

When she made it to her apartment, she snuck in behind the couple from upstairs who had twins that were a grade above her at school. The apartment was decorated tastefully, no toys strewn about. The holiday photo that she hated because her hair looked weird was displayed proudly in the living room, on the mantle. The adults were drinking wine, and her mother, who she spotted from behind her secret hiding spot in the large fern in the corner, was drinking some water, laughing with her dad.

Once they were distracted with the announcement that the new year was only an hour away, Sam scurried to her bedroom. She felt safe once the door was closed, sinking against it. She reached up for her shell bottle, then went to her window. It wasn't supposed to open, not really, but it did so anyway. She snuck out with a blanket, the small camera her aunt bought her for Christmas, and her shells, ready to sit on her fire escape and watch the ball drop whenever it would.

The wind began to pick up and she shivered, holding her knees up to her chest as she stared at the dark, clear sky. Beneath her, people moved like little ants, this way and that, cheering and excited. The small balcony creaked and she could feel a sudden warmth near her, which startled her.

"Heavens," Harry said softly. He wasn't really dressed for the weather at all, but still, Sam was a little happy to see him again. It had been five months since she had seen him. And she had been debating on telling someone about him, but... no. No. No one would believe her. She couldn't believe it herself. He just... came, just... manifested. "Hello, Sam."

"Harry," Sam nodded. She had sort of become used to seeing him. It scared her, not in a bad way, but more in an unknown way. She never knew when he was coming, and their interactions never lasted very often. She bundled herself up in her blanket, pulling it over her head slightly to protect her from the sharp wind.

"Happy New Years, yes? What is it, 2000..."

"2004, Harry," Sam snickered, shaking her head. She held her camera in her hand, thinking. Maybe if she took a picture of him, she'd be able to prove that he existed to other people. God, she was smart.

"Right. 2004. How's Wally?" Harry asked, crossing his legs pretzel style. His shirt was tropical looking, blue with flowers, and his hair was kind of as long as it was the first time they met, but not as short as it was at the hospital. He was wearing dark jeans with a rip in the knee, and boots. Again with the boots.

"Chunky. He's pretty okay, I guess." She shrugged, biting her lip. It wasn't like she didn't want to see him again, but why was he here? Every time he came, something happened. The first time, Kylie began to get along with people better, seemed less aggressive and more ambivalent. (She smiled at the thought of the puppy upstairs, lounging in the kitchen near the warm stove.) Then Wally was born. After the hospital, her mother had stopped working to take care of the baby. And now? What would happen now? "Happy New Year's."

"It isn't the new year yet, Sam," he teased.

"Where were you?"

"Antigua. It's an island. We - I was on vacation," he explained, rubbing his thumb against the rings on his fingers. "I bought you a shell for your collection, too." He dug around his pocket, making a small face. The fire escape was, in retrospect, relatively cramped, and Harry, who was really quite tall, was probably very uncomfortable, all bundled up on it with Sam and her things.

It was a small little conch shell, tiny and sandy. It was still a little wet, and had some sand on it. He blew the sand off and rubbed it against his shirt, then passed it to her. Sam had to smile. It was kind of nice. She tucked it into the pocket of her dress to keep it safe. She found it curious, at first, but never truly paid it much mind until later on.

Sam dug out the first shell out of her box, half of a small scallop. It was cream, and orange. He smiled and put it in his shirt pocket, then relaxed against the brick of the building.

"Why are you here?" Sam asked after a quiet lull in the conversation. He'd asked her about school, and how she was doing, and she said she had been doing well. She asked about his vacation. He said he was with a very special girl and that they'd been having a lovely time on the beach. Sam didn't want to be jealous. (She was, and was even more distressed - internally, of course - when he kept mum about who he'd been with.)

"Because," Harry replied, but never really supplied an answer. Just because. He offered her a butterscotch which she took with a small smile. She popped it into her mouth, adopting his same posture. "I'm just here."

"What about your vacation?"

"My whole life is one big vacation, Sam. There will be more adventures in the future, I'm sure."

That evening, they watched the countdown from the fire escape together, while her parents hosted their party, her grandparents cared for her brother and dog. It was one of her fondest memories, to be fair. She took pictures with her pink instant camera, too, but when she turned to Harry to take a picture of him once the ball had dropped and fireworks were lit, he was gone.