"Hey, do you want to go shopping today?" Nikki asked Niall as they sat and had breakfast together, the teenager pulling a face as he buttered the toast on his plate, glancing up at his foster-mother who was cradling a mug of coffee in her hand.

"Do we have to?"

"You're growing out of your clothes" she told him with a sigh, glancing over her shoulder at Harry who was at the stove frying some eggs and bacon "And Harry and I thought you might want to go and look for decorating things for your bedroom"

Niall frowned as they said that, poking at his toast with his knife unnecessary before putting it down on the plate and sighing. Harry put the eggs on the plate and walked over to Nikki, standing behind her and putting his hands on her shoulders, leaning down to kiss her head and rubbing her shoulders with his thumbs.

"You don't have to, if you don't want to, we just thought that after all this time it would be nice to make the room yours" Nikki told Niall, reaching over the table to cover his hand with hers and giving her a small smile "We have something for you anyway"

"Oh?"

Harry moved to his bag on the counter behind him, pulling out a folder and squeezing Nikki's shoulder again as he walked around the table and handed it to Niall, the teenager frowning at it and taking it, glancing to his foster-parents.

"What is it?"

"Open it and find out" Nikki laughed, moving to the chair next to Niall instead and flicking her hair over her shoulder, Harry standing behind Niall and giving his partner a small smile "We would have preferred to do this when Albert was here with us so we were all together as a family but, well I think you deserve to have this be your day"

"My day?" Niall was so confused, opening the folder and feeling his heart jump into his throat as he read the first few lines of the piece of paper on top, closing the folder quickly and taking a deep breath, before opening it again and blinking to try and push away the blurriness there. "Really?" he whispered, biting his lip and looking at Nikki who smiled and nodded, her own eyes filled with tears.

"If that's what you still want"

Niall couldn't speak, nodding and putting the folder of adoption confirmation on the table and moving to wrap his arms around Nikki, burying his face in her shoulder as he began to cry. Nikki held him close, burying one hand in his hair and rubbing his back with the other, her own cheeks wet with tears as she held her son.

"Thank you"

Nikki looked up at Harry as he put his hand over hers on Niall's head, leaning down to wrap them both in his arms and kissed her on the head, rubbing her arm with his thumb and sighing softly.

"When did you do all this?" Niall sniffed, moving away from them slightly and wiping his cheeks and eyes, looking from one to the other "I thought..with Albert..."

"As though we weren't going to adopt you" Nikki told him softly, wiping his cheeks with her thumbs and laughing tearfully when he let her "We wanted to do it before Albert was born, and then we both decided that we were going to do it before Albert came home, so he can come home to his parents and his official big brother"

"Will he come home?" Niall asked quietly, he loved the baby so much, sent his friends a picture of his brother every day in their group chat and always told them how well he was doing. He saw Harry and Nikki glance at each other, Harry sighing and pulling a chair around to perch on it so they were all eye level.

"We're hopeful, we can't be anything but hopeful, but we've never lied to you about how ill he is and will be for a while"

Niall nodded, they'd answered his questions as much as they could, but he hadn't wanted to upset them, especially Nikki, when Albert had been first born. He'd asked most of his questions to Leo or Janet when they had been looking after him, or looked up a lot of things online too but the things he had seen had scared him and he decided to stick to asking the doctors that he knew.

"When will it go through?"

"We just need to file it" Harry told him with a smile, patting Niall on the back and smiling "Now you're stuck with us for life, sorry about that"

"I think that's cool, I could get used to it I suppose" Niall joked right back and Nikki groaned, shaking her head and picking her coffee up.

"I can't believe you've both got the same dry sense of humour, I am all alone in this house" she grumbled, but they both knew she didn't mean it "Albert better take after me"

"I've already started training him to take after his dad"

"Oh Christ" Nikki rolled her eyes and wrapped her arm around Harry's shoulder, smiling as he rested their heads together and Niall picked up the folder again and opened it to look through it "Most of that won't mean a thing to you, but it's all the stuff for your adoption. We just need to take it in, they'll want a meeting with you about all of this properly, but they said unless you are very adamant about not wanting us to adopt you or if there's anything wrong with it, the entire thing is pretty much guaranteed that you are ours"

Niall grinned when he heard that, running his hand over the adoption page at the front, his future name of Niall Alexander-Cunningham written on the page for the first time made his heart jump and he looked up at them.

"This is all I've wanted for so long"

Harry reached over to wrap his arm around Niall's shoulder, squeezing his shoulder and kissing his head, surprised when the teenager let him do it.

"So, do you want to go shopping today to make that bedroom your own?"

"Can we...can I go and tell Albert that I'm his brother first?"

Nikki swallowed heavily and nodded, rubbing his hand soothingly as she did so, the bond that Niall had with the baby was something that she could have never wished for even if she tried.

"We'll go and see him before we go shopping, now eat your toast or it'll be cold"

"Hey" Niall smiled down into the incubator at the baby in there, poking his gloved hand through the hole in the side and stroking his brother's tiny hand "Your mum and dad are outside, they gave me a few minutes with you first" he murmured, glancing up at the nurse who was writing her notes on the other side of the room, then back at the baby "Or I suppose they're our mum and dad now. I know they say you can't hear me, but I think you can, you know what we're saying" he nodded, smiling when Albert gripped his finger tightly and moved his little legs weakly "I don't know if they'll let me call them mum and dad but I'll be okay with Nikki and Harry still, but you're officially my little brother now and we can't wait to have you home with us. I send your picture to the boys every day and they can't wait to meet you properly, you'll be able to join in with our movies as soon as you're home, even if mum and dad say no to that, we'll sneak you in don't worry" he laughed tearfully, biting his lip and looking up to see the nurse giving him a small smile, looking back at her notes before putting them down and walking over to him.

"They said he'll be sick"

The nurse nodded at his words and glanced out of the window where the blinds were open to where the baby's parents were talking to someone else in the hallway.

"It's normal for babies born prematurely to be sick, and this one is very lucky, he's had his ups and downs as you know but he's a little fighter. We haven't seen a premmie baby with this much fight in them for a while, especially one born as early as he was"

"But he's not..when can he come home?"

"Not for a long time yet, Niall"

Niall bit his lip and nodded, he had known that deep down, but every time he visited and they said he was doing well he hoped that they would say he could come home, even as tiny and delicate as he was, and still in the incubator.

"You'll be able to sneak him into your movie nights at some point, don't worry" the nurse teased, and Niall couldn't help but laugh "I won't tell Harry and Nikki you said that"