"I think he looks like you" Nikki commented to Harry as she sat in the armchair of the room that their son had occupied for the past eight weeks since he had been born, the baby laying on a special cushion on her lap, still attached to various wires and machines but growing bigger every day that he was under the care of the nurses and doctors who had been with him since he had been born.

"Hmm, perhaps if I didn't have any hair" Harry responded from the chair adjacent to Nikki's so he was facing their son "And was a bit smaller"

Nikki giggled at him, reaching over to stroke his cheek and smiling when he kissed her palm before applying some gel to her hand to clean it before she returned it to Albert's tiny hand to stroke it, the little digits flexing before they found the tip of his mum's finger and gripped it as hard as he could.

"Daddy is jealous because you are more handsome than he is" Nikki told the baby, stroking his hat covered head gently with her thumb and looking up when the door opened and a nurse came in and smiled at them "Does he have to go back?"

"He does Nikki, you know the rules about time"

Nikki sighed and nodded, she knew that they couldn't have Albert out of his incubator for too long still, and every time they got him out for one of them to sit with on their lap the time just seemed to speed by until their son was put back in his bed. She let the nurse gently take her son from her lap when the incubator was ready, Harry gripping her hand tightly and kissing her knuckles as their son was taken away from them again. One day they would take him home and they wouldn't have to give him back every time they held him for a little while. Nikki sniffed, letting the second nurse looking after their son move the cushion from her lap so it could be cleaned, getting to her feet afterwards.

"I need some air" she whispered, waving away Harry's hand as he reached out for her and opened his mouth to say something "On my own"

Walking quickly from the room, she made her way down the corridors to the garden that was specially there for parents and family of the premmie babies on the ward to go and sit and have some time. She had spent a lot of time sitting there in the past few weeks, even after she had been discharged from hospital and she had to return home without her baby. That had been a hard few days for her, probably the hardest since the first day that she had woken and they had told her that her baby had been born too early. Sitting down on her usual bench, she pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped her nose, then her eyes with her fists, the sound of the fountain behind her comforting her with a sense of familiarity. Nikki turned her head when she saw movement, seeing a woman who looked a lot younger than herself sitting on a chair in a hospital dressing gown and robe, staring at the ground in front of her with a blank look on her face. She had been in that position, she knew some of what was going through the young woman's head and she felt some connection to her even though she had never seen her on the ward before or even spoken to her. Nikki left her in peace though, she also knew from personal experience how frustrating it was to try and get a moment's peace in this place without someone wanting to come and check that you were okay, or to ask something. There was part of her that couldn't believe that it had been eight weeks since Albert was born, and she wondered if the eight weeks would have gone just as quickly if she had still been pregnant and they had been sorting things out for when the baby arrived. She still refused to paint the nursery, or allow anyone to put up any of the furniture, it felt to her like bad luck to start getting that hopeful that Alfred was coming home at some point, even though he was getting stronger, she knew how quickly that things could turn the other way around and she didn't need anything jinxing that for them. Besides, she thought, it would be such a long time before Albert was even let home, they were doing daily tests to see what the outcomes of him being born so early would be and every day she feared what the doctors would say when they came to see their son.

"Nikki?"

She looked over to Harry when she heard his voice, watching as he closed the door to the gardens and walked over to sit next to her on the bench, taking her hand in his and moving it to rest on his lap, saying nothing as he rubbed her knuckles with his thumb. They stayed in silence for a little while, Nikki resting her head on his shoulder as they listened to the sound of the fountain behind them, wind-chimes tinkling in the tree in the middle of the garden every time there was a little bit of breeze.

"I just want him home, Harry" Nikki spoke eventually, her voice breaking at the end despite trying her hardest to not cry, she had cried enough in the past eight weeks, enough for a lifetime "I want to wake up at night and be able to go and look at him, I want to sit at breakfast and hold him while you and Niall argue over who's going to chose the movie later on after school, I want to watch Niall sit with him and..." she couldn't continue, Harry's arm having come around to pull her into his side, her sobs increasing as she buried her face in his chest and clung to him.

Harry kissed her head and closed his eyes as he rested their heads together, rubbing her back as she cried, his own tears dripping down his cheeks and onto her hair.

"I know" he murmured after a few seconds of trying to get his voice to not shake, failing miserably, he wanted all of those things too and some days he laid in bed and held her as she sobbed and screamed into the pillows of their bed. This was something that he couldn't protect her from and he hated it. It felt like someone was tearing his heart out every time they had to leave their baby here at the hospital and go home, despite knowing that the nurses and doctors were amazing, they would even send them videos or pictures of Albert whatever day or night they asked for them, and Harry knew that he and Nikki owed everything to how amazing they were. "The doctors say he's doing so well though"

"I know, that scares me, what if...you know what could go wrong, what if he's just doing so well and then something happens and..."

"Don't think like that, I can't think like that Nikki" Harry whispered, shaking his head and using his free hand to wipe his eyes "All I can think about and focus on is the first time we're going to take our baby boy home, our little Bertie"

"Albert" Nikki responded automatically to him calling their son that, laughing tearfully and shaking her head "We don't even know what is going to be wrong with him, Harry"

"Does there have to be"

Nikki gave him a look, she knew he was trying to bury his head in the sand over it but she couldn't, it was always there in the back of her mind, how being born so early was going to affect their son in the long term.

"Do you think he knows we love him?"

"I don't think there is any chance that he won't" Harry laughed quietly, stroking her cheek with his thumb and kissing his partner softly on the lips, a smile staying on his face as he rested their foreheads together "You know in a few months time when he's home with us, and we're sleep deprived, and we're running out of bottles to feed him, and our clothes smell like...baby sick.." he smiled when Nikki giggled at that "and it's just like trying to look after a drunk teenager in the body of a baby, we'll look back on this and wonder where our tiny baby boy went"

"God as much as I hate you being right, I hope you're right" Nikki nodded, putting her hand on the back of his head and closing her eyes "I hope you're right"