Dear María

I woke up with a mild hangover hearing the sound of a strong heartbeat. As stupid as it may sound, I thought it was Jack's, but I soon realised it wasn't; his heartbeat wasn't that loud. I shook my head and sat up, my eyes slowly adjusting to my surroundings, they looked familiar, but not quite, and noticed the body next to me. I turned to see a sympathetic-looking Stella staring at me.
“Good morning, cutie” I smiled and stroked her under her forelock. She closed her eyes and moved her head closer to me.
“Where is my-?” I found my phone next to Stella and opened it. No missed calls, no messages, nothing. My heart broke a little, but I let it slip a bit and stood up, “Well, Stella, I better go home, Olivia may me worried” I hugged her neck, but something was… bothering her, and it wasn’t Ladrón.
She looked at me with pleading eyes, like saying ‘Please don’t do anything stupid’ just when I gave her a small nod, she quickly placed herself in front of me and curled her neck around my back, when I protested, she didn’t let go until I gave up and she looked at me again with urgent eyes, her eyes traveled up and down my figure, stopped at my feet, knees, hands and head, then she turned her head around, almost as if to touch her own back, and looked at me again.
“You want me to ride again?” I raised an eyebrow, she shook her head slightly.
We stared at each other for a while until I broke eye contact and stared into distance.
“Alright, you win” she pinned her ears forward happily, “But have in mind I have to work, so that’ll mean a few mornings and, if possible, all afternoons” I said with a bit of pity in my tone, because before we had more than 10 hours a day to be together, but she was massively happy and didn’t care.

The next three weeks went like this: I woke up, had breakfast again, morning routine (excluding the shower), dressed, fed Olivia, went to the equestrian center, rode Stella for two hours, went home, showered, changed, left food for Olivia, went to work (I didn’t have lunch), went home, ate some energy bars, back to the equestrian center, shower, ‘free time’ (which was dinner with Jack, but since he wasn’t here, then free time), fed Olivia and bed.
It was probably 2am and got a text from Jack telling me they were entering the airplane and I shot up from my comfortable position in bed -why do you always have to get up from bed when you’re comfy?- and dressed.
I grabbed my keys and gave Olivia a few hugs and kisses before leaving, she had been looking after me more than I looking after her after all, and left the house and drove to the airport. I waited there for a a few hours, of course I went to have some coffee because I was very tired and my legs hurt, and started to look nervously around every time someone, even some casual guards went through that door. At the same time, I was falling apart. Yes, I did gain a bit more of confidence with Stella, but the nightmares hadn’t stopped since that night and every time I woke up and didn’t find Jack next to me, I broke a little inside.
I stared into distance when my teary eyes caught sight of a bicolour hair walking in my direction. I looked up and my lips broke into a smile when I saw those beautiful brown eyes I’d been dreading to see for a month, looking right back at me. I didn’t even have time to ran up to him, when Jack dropped his suitcase and hugged me so tight, he lifted my feet from the ground, I could only wrap my arms around his neck. When we pulled away a bit, I attached our lips together, and that’s when time stood still; I couldn’t think of anything else but him, I could only feel the warmth of his body against mine, the thin layers between us, the passion and love in his movements. We didn’t even realise there were some fans (hopefully, they weren’t those stalker-like fans and let us have our moment) and the guys cheering at us until we pulled away, both of our faces bright red.
“Go home!” Alex shouted past us as he walked with Matt to the bus with the rest of the guys, Jack gave him a look and turned to me with a smile.
“I guess you’re taking me home, then?” he stretched his arm to grab his suitcase and put his other hand around my waist, walking down the airport after waving off some fans, and to the car. I drove home, as I imagined Jack would be exhausted, and helped him with his suitcase.

“So” he cooed in my ear from behind, whilst I put his clean clothes in the drawers and cupboard. “How have you been doing, princess?”
I doubted for a second, should I tell him I had been having nightmares about our dead -shit, that word hurt- and unborn child?
“I’ve been better” I said under my breath, still sorting out his clothes, he turned me around.
“What have you been doing?” he looked worried.
“I… I started to ride Stella again” I looked away.
He looked at me for a few seconds and put two fingers under my chin to make me look at him.
“You’re not telling me something” he stated with sad eyes and pressed our foreheads together, “Tell me, baby” he cupped my face with one hand, his other hand on my waist.
“It’s not that easy, Jack” I felt tears welling up in my eyes.
“Let me guess, hmm..,” he pulled away, hi hands not moving from where they were, “Work?” I shook my head, “Stella? Mikel?” he spat the last guess, I shook my head to all of them. “Tell me” his hand on my waist started to draw faint circles on my skin.
“I… I’ve been having some nightmares” I sighed, putting a a hand on my forehead, his hand on my neck dropping to my waist.
“About what?” he moved closer to me and touched my face with the tip of his nose.
I took a deep breath before answering.
“A-About o-our k-kid” I couldn’t help but let some thick tears roll down my face, which didn’t even make it that far because Jack wiped them off with his nose and kissed every place his nose stopped a tear, “I see it in my sleep” I cried, burying my face in hi chest, his arms tighter around me, “One night, it’s a boy, one night, a girl, and I can’t sleep properly anymore, it’s like it’s hauting me” I sobbed.
“You could have called me” he kissed my hair softly.
“Yeah, at 5am” I scoffed, still crying.
“I wouldn’t even hesitate picking up” he pressed me tighter against his body.
I didn’t say anything and put a hand on his chest, gripping his shirt, inconciously worried he’d leave right then.
“I missed you” he pulled away a bit and leaned down, our lips touching.
“I missed you too” I whispered with a small smile and kissed him softly.
He smiled and kissed me back, a hand on my neck and the other one around my waist, our lips in synch. He asked for entrance, walking me softly to the bed, and I happily granted him. Our tongues danced together, exploring our mouths again after a month of missing each other, but when his arm around my waist pressed my skinny body tighter against his, he stopped and his hand on my neck went to my waist, and both of them going under my shirt and up until they got to my marked ribs. I looked away the moment his eyes followed his hands.
“María…” he started, his fingers cautiously touching my bones through the thin layer of skin. “Please tell me you didn’t stop eating” I could see from the corner of my eye him staring right at me with a concerned expression in his features.
“Mari” he said in a softer tone, putting his fingers under my chin to make me look at him, I turned to face him, but looked at his lower lashes instead of his eyes.
“Please look at me” he said in a small begging tone, I looked at him for a second and to his lower lashes again, quickly.
“You stopped eating, didn’t you?” his hands dropped to my hips and he brought me closer to him.
“N-No” I stuttered.
“No?” he raised an eyebrow and one of his hands left my hip and, with his thumb and his middle finger, he circled my arm, just above my elbow, his fingers touched perfectly together, “Well, this didn’t happen a month ago” he pointed out. “Please look at me, babe” he moved closer to me.
“I-I didn’t stop eating” I didn’t look at him, “I just put some guidelines, that’s all”
“What guidelines?” he raised his eyebrows, “The ones you had were already bad enough, what’s this then?” he started to get pissed at me, I flinched a bit at his tone.
He took notice of my small movement.
“Sorry, María, I-I just…” he started to apologise.
“No, no, it’s okay” I looked away.
“No, it’s not” he hugged me tightly and I buried my face in his chest, letting some tears I hadn’t noticed fall, “And it’s certainly not okay to do this to yourself”
“Sorry…” I whispered, not meeting his gaze.
He softened his expression and hugged me tighter, slowly leading me to bed. I sat down when my knees touched the mattress, Jack kissed me softly on my lips, taking my shoes and clothes off slowly until I was only in my underwear and he took off his hoodie and handed it to me. I unhooked my bra and put his hoodie on, Jack crawling in bed next to me.
We spent the night cuddling and I told him what had been really going on, including the good stuff, like Stella and everything, until I fell asleep hearing Jack’s soft whispers in my ear,
“I love you, princess” he kissed my hair before I completely fell asleep.

Notes

Short and shitty, I know. I'm loosing my spark, also :s
Sorry, I've been away for soo long, I didn't know what to put in here so I just skipped some weeks in the story so I could start having a bit of motivation writing the interesting stuff that's starting to come up :3
Anyways, school started 4 days ago because in Spain we are more interested in our two hour naps and summer holidays instead of education xD I'm telling you this because right now it's 00:35am, I have school tomorrow and I'll try to upload as soon as possible, although I'm not so sure anymore, so... yeah...
Please understand that.
Thanks!
(I put the trigger warning thing in case someone was triggered easily)

Title credit: Heartache On The Big Screen by 5 Seconds Of Summer.