Sunrise

                                    

                                          
by: narrymusings
                          
Summary: 
                          
Three times Niall witnesses his daughter bonding with Harry over sunsets on Christmas morning.
                          
°•°•°
                          
Five.
                          
He wakes to an empty bed, which is new. He hasn’t slept in a bed by himself in years.
                          
The other side of the bed is still warm, though, which means that he hasn’t been alone for very long. (Which Niall still takes a relief, if he’s being honest.)
                          
He checks the time on his phone, groans out loud when he realizes that it’s only 7:45. It’s simultaneously later than he wakes up during the week to start getting Olivia ready for school, and much earlier than he’d planned on getting up on Christmas morning.
                          
He pulls the duvet off of himself, swings his legs over the side of the bed, and then pushes himself to his feet. His feet slap against the hardwood floor beneath him, echoing around the otherwise silent bedroom, as he makes his way across the room – and then further, all the way down the hallway. He peeks inside Olivia’s bedroom to find her bed empty as well. It’s a little strange, he thinks, but it doesn’t worry him. In fact, it only confuses him more.
                          
He finds them both – his five year-old daughter and his year-long boyfriend, Harry – sitting on the bench out on the front porch. They’re both bundled up, all winter jackets and fuzzy hats, with a blanket draped over the both of them. Olivia is sitting up on Harry’s lap, the back of her head resting back against Harry’s shoulder whilst he holds her close to his chest. It’s so cold out that Niall can see both of their breaths in the air around them.
                          
Niall doesn’t know what they’re doing, doesn’t know why either of them are awake this early – but he quite likes seeing them like this. It’s adorable, if he says so himself. And suddenly he really wants to take a picture of them together – so he does. He snaps a quick photo, smiles to himself as he gazes downwards and the moment frozen in time.
                          
God, he loves these two humans. Olivia is the best thing to ever happen to him; the scariest, hardest, most nerve-wracking and nail-biting and fear-inflicting thing in the history of, well, his entire life – but absolutely, 100 per cent, the greatest thing in the whole world. And Harry, well… Harry is a really close second.
                          
“Hazza?”
                          
Niall’s gaze snaps upwards, away from the screen in hands, and settles on his two greatest treasures in real time. Olivia’s sitting forward, now. Looking up at Harry’s face with wide, blue eyes.
                          
“Yes, Olive?” Harry hums back softly.
                          
“Is the sun waking up soon, yet?”
                          
Harry smirks. “Well, sunrise is at 8 o’clock, so- I won’t be too much longer.”
                          
“’kay,” she murmurs, settles back against Harry’s shoulder.
                          
Niall thinks, briefly, that he could join them. He could shove his feet into a pair of boots – his, or Harry’s, it doesn’t really matter – and put on a jacket to join them. But, well, he sort of really likes the view.
                          
“Can I wake daddy up after?”
                          
“Tell you what,” Harry whispers, resting his chin on the top of Olivia’s shoulder. “How about I’ll start on making breakfast while you go wake your daddy up?”
                          
“Will you make your pancakes, Haz?”
                          
“Of course.”
                          
“’kay.”
                          
Niall smiles softly. Gives himself a few more minutes to watch his two favourite people whilst they watch the sun rise over the rooftops of the houses across the street, before slipping back up the stairs and into his (and Harry’s) bedroom to await his little girl’s retrieval.