A/N: This chapter just might get me to a million reads, if I'm lucky. And then, my dear Furbies, we will party like no tomorrow. Shout out and dedication to Zayn Malik, he's twenty! :o They grow up so fast c':

  Enjoy!

  ~Harry's P.O.V~

  Louis had somehow managed to cuddle up against me on the couch, even though when we first started to watch Spongebob he was stuffing his face with Doritos on the other side of the sofa. Part of me wanted to shrug him off, because he's always been a drooler, but I let him be. If there's one thing that Darcy had taught me, it was to cherish the time you had with someone, because you never know if they'd be by your side the next day.

  "You know: he, she, me, Wumbo? The study of Wumbosity?" Patrick's voice said from the television. I had zoned out from watching cartoons, and now my focus was in on my iPhone screen as I scrolled through my Twitter feed. I would have shut the thing off a while ago, but with Louis crashed on my shoulder, the remote all the way across the room, and the fact that I was feeling just plain lazy prevented me from doing so.

  "Don, we're pushing them too hard." I heard Paul say from his bedroom quarters. He should have known better than to be on the phone with management. We all knew that the walls of the bus were practically paper thin, a lesson learned by being able to hear people getting up and peeing in the middle of the night.

  "Just a few days. They've already got a bit of the song down, but they're only teenagers. Well fine. You obviously knew what I meant." I could practically see Paul, pacing in his room, his mouth carved into a hard line. There wasn't anyone else in the world who had an equal amount of annoyance coming at them from management but Paul. They were his bosses, and Paul wasn't one to be bossed around, rather he liked to be in charge and tell people what to do.

  "Dammit, Don! You're working them too hard!" Paul practically yelled through the phone. I found his sudden tone a bit perplexing, this was a side of Paul that he hadn't seen- heard of before.

  "I understand." I heard Paul say once more, in a small voice. I wanted to know so badly what Don was saying on the other line, but then again, just hearing his nasally voice was enough to put someone in a foul mood.

  Next to me, Louis stirred in his sleep. I didn't want him to wake up, especially to this. Although Lou might find it a bit invigiourating or something that might want him to stand up to management a bit more, I knew that he shouldn't hear it. There was too much stress on us now to worry about Don and him not being content enough with our success.

  "Harry?" Louis whispered next to me, which caused me to jump a bit. Louis frowned from this sudden movement, and I knew that he was still half asleep. I patted his matted up hair that was now sticking in all different directions from him sleeping with his hair up in a quiff, and the muscles on his face relaxed. In a way, Louis always felt like a little brother to me, even though he was three years my senior.

  Suddenly, I heard the door being ripped open and I perked up a bit in my seat, hoping that i would be Darcy who would come through the door. We'd only been officially together for a week, but it felt like whenever she was away from me I was always a little bit out of it. I had explained this to my mother one night after Darcy's quick disappearance, and she smiled at me and told me 'that's when you know you've found your soul mate.' Maybe that was when I first started becoming sadder than usual, because, my mum didn't know this, but I had been talking about Darcy and didn't think she was ever coming back.

  "Please, just stop." Her voice said from the kitchen. This time I leaned forward in an attempt to catch a glimpse of her, and Louis fell into the couch behind me with a groan. Before scrambling to pick up his head and place it back on the couch, I stood up and peeked around the corner into the kitchen.

  Darcy was patting her hair down, her face pale and foreign. Liam was standing over her and looked as if he was searching her hair for lice as I saw Zayn in the background kissing a banana from the centerpiece on the table. The whole scene made absolutely no sense to me, and I wasn't about to wait around to figure out what was up.

  "Harry-" Liam began as I took big strides into the kitchen. Zayn tried to hug me, but I brushed him off.

  "What happened?" I questioned.

  "Everything is fine, she's just a little... shook up. Can we not talk about this here?" Liam pleaded, and I saw in his eyes that now wasn't the time, but I didn't care.

  "What. Happened." I stated slowly. Liam rolled his eyes, giving up.

  "Zayn was taken to jail for driving under the influence, and Darcy and I had to go and pick him up. We just had a run in with someone, but it's all fine now." Liam's eyes bore into mine intensely, making me shift uncomfortably. What was he even talking about?

  Darcy didn't utter a single word, instead she looked as if she was looking past us both. Something was definitely out of place, but I hesitated to ask. What could have been so bad?

  "William and Pamela." Darcy squeaked. She cleared her throat and straightened her back, but she still looked scared and weak, no matter how hard she tried to mask it. I rushed up to her and held her tight, running my hand through her hair. My hand paused at a spot that felt a little bare, and now it all made sense to me.

  "I'm so sorry, Darc'. Here, want me to get you something?" I asked cautiously. Instead of getting a response, she pushed me away and stormed out of the room, leaving Liam and I gaping at each other and Zayn trying to eat a plastic cup with a smug grin on his face. I immediately wanted to scream at him, but it was no use, he'd have forgotten by morning.

  "Wait!" I called out to Darcy following her into the livingroom. Louis was awake by now, a witness to  the whole thing. It didn't matter, though. I had to know what was up.

  Darcy stormed through the room, and when Zayn spread his arms open and tried to give her a hug she ducked under his open arms and into the bathroom, closing the door tight behind her. I stopped in my tracks and spun around to see Liam and Louis in the middle of the living room, shifting uncomfortably as Spongebob's laugh served as background noise.

  "Liam, you need to tell me everything." I said in a small voice He closed his eyes before nodding and looked back at me, his eyes remorseful and apologetic. But really, I knew that it wasn't him who had done anything, it was Zayn, and he'd get to hear all about it in the morning as he would be puking his guts out.

  "We went to the station and got Zayn. Then, when we were walking back I saw them. I reacted a bit to late, William jumped up and grabbed a fistfull of her hair and she hit her head on the bars. There's just a small bump, but there's also a tiny patch of hair that got ripped out. Just try and leave her be, mate." Liam said calmly. But by now I was fuming, and wanted to charge at him like a bull. I just had to keep telling myself that it wasn't him, it was William.

  How I wished that I could face him now and show him all the suffering and troubles that he has caused.

  Instead of taking my anger out on poor Liam, I simply shook my head and approached the bathroom door. I could practically feel their eyes burning holes in the back of my head, but after a few minutes I knew that I was alone in the room and they had given us privacy.

  I slumped down outside of the bathroom door, wondering just what she was doing. I heard the faucet stop running and then a sniff, and I wanted so bad to reach out to her and tell her that everything was okay. But I knew that it wasn't, and this wasn't something that could just be fixed. We were in a big mangled up mess, but we were in it together, and I had to be there for her through it.

  "Darcy?" I whispered. "Please, talk to me Darc'. Tell me what you're thinking."

  Five minutes must have passed before I gave up. She probably wasn't going to speak to me, although I knew that she hadn't a reason to be angry with me. Or maybe she might, if she knew the secret I was keeping from her.

  "Please." I begged. "Please?"

  Still no answer. I laid on the matted carpet floor, trying to block out Plankton and Mr. Krabs' voices from the television and try to hear if she made any sound. Peering through the crack in the door, I saw that she was sitting against the door. It wasn't like she couldn't hear me. She had to have heard me. But why wouldn't she say anything?

  "I'm not weak, Harry." Her frail voice finally said through the door. My mind was racing with a thousand questions that filled it all at once, but nothing came out of my mouth as I tried to make sense of it.

  "What do you mean, Darcy? Can I see you?" I asked.

  "I mean, I'm not weak. Everyone is treating me like I'm some fragile little girl, but I'm not. I'm stronger than any of you think. And I just wish... I just wish that you'd all act like I could take care of myself. You were starting to, a few days ago, but this one time I ran into an accident and now I'm back to everyone being so careful around me and I hate it and I just want to erase everything that happened to me for those two years and I want people to stop judging me for what I've been through and I want people to tell me the truth." She stated, all in one breath.

  My voice was hitched in the back of my throat as she uttered that last sentence, and I began to wonder if she knew. What if she had known this whole time that I was lying to her? But was I really lying... I just wasn't telling her the truth, right? Isn't that just considered a white lie?

  There were too many questions that I had, and there weren't enough answers. All I knew was that I would try and do Darcy's simple request. I felt so blind for not knowing all along, all she ever wanted  was to be treated as an equal- as a normal eighteen year old girl.

  "Harry? Are you still there?" Darcy wondered out loud from the other side of the door. I smiled at the sound of her voice and how it seemed to make me feel better in an instant, how she had that  effect on me.

  "I'm here." I reassured her. "And I'll do everything I can to make everyone treat you normally. But to me, you're more than that. You're a special girl, kidnapped or not, and I want you to know that." I was glad she couldn't see me blushing, but she probably was doing the same.

  I could hear her laugh on the other side of the door, and thought for a moment that maybe she hadn't heard about the whole Vanessa being after her thing. Was it so wrong of me to not want to tell her?

  "Can you open the door?" I asked. My question was answered as I heard the door being unlocked with a single click, and I opened the door and gave Darcy a big hug. She smelled like vanilla and smoke, but I assumed the smoke part was probably from the jail.

  "No more secrets, okay?" She asked. I paused and let her go a bit too quickly, looking right into her eyes. "I know about Vanessa. I've known for a couple of days, and I want you to know that you can tell me anything."

  "I should have said something, I know. But what am I supposed to say? 'Oh hey, this person's going to try and kill you?' Which she's not, by the way. Paul isn't letting that happen." I informed her. She laughed, but I saw a trace of uneasyness wash over her face to be replaced with reassurance and comfort.

  "Thanks, Hare." She replied. It was only then that I noticed we had a small audience watching us hug eachother in a tiny bathroom, and if I took a step back we'd both fall in the toilet. But ti didn't matter to me, I decided, because there was nothing more right than in this moment.

  And before we rejoined ourself with the group in the living room, I whispered to her,

  "No more secrets."

  A/N: D'aww<3 I want to thank each and every one of you reading this, you all mean so much to me and I'd never imagine even getting half as far as I've gotten. You all are amazing, and I love you more than Furbies c:

  I'll be picking a commenter to dedicate the next chapter to c:

  Oh, and h a p p y  b i r t h d a y  z a y n  j a w a a d  m a l i k < 3