Saturday, June 30 2012
Orlando, FL

Niall was not a morning person. He had never been a morning person. So, it was truly a testament to how much he loved Brittany that he was walking around Sea World in Orlando at 9:30 in the morning (on a Saturday, no less, not that weekends were anything of value to him) when he still could have been sleeping.

He gripped Brittany’s hand lazily as they walked around the park, and used the other to rub his eyes underneath his sunglasses. He yawned, and Brittany gave him a look.

“It’s not that early,” she said with a laugh.

“We were up at eight,” he reminded her. Up at eight with Brittany blabbing on and on about how she wanted to go to Sea World and if he could please come with her and how much fun it would be. Naturally, he agreed, but now he was wondering if he should have just stayed in the less than comfortable tour bus bunk.

But when he looked over at her and saw the bright smile on her face, he knew he’d made the right decision. They only had a couple days left together, and even though he was tired, they had to make the most of them. Niall suddenly wondered if that was partly what this was about, but he didn’t ask her.

“There’s not really anything to do here first thing in the morning, is there?” Niall commented, looking around.

Brittany shrugged. She’d always wanted to go to Sea World, but at the moment, she was just content walking around the park with her boyfriend. “I don’t know. We could go on some rides or something. There’s the dolphins too.”

Niall contemplated that for a moment. He liked rides… but it was still way too early for that. Even though they would probably wake him up. “Dolphins,” he opted for. They could go on rides later. Even though they had a show that night… it wasn’t even ten in the morning yet! Simply put, there was still a lot of time.

So the two of them began to walk towards the Dolphin Cove, still glancing around the park.

“Oh my GOD!”

Brittany heard Niall sigh as the all too familiar shriek of teenage girls rang through the air. He plastered a smile on his face as two girls walked towards them. They looked to be about the same age as they were.

“I can’t believe it’s actually you guys,” one of them said, sounding nearly out of breath as she and her friend approached them. “I can’t believe it.”

“Oh my God,” the other girl said. “What are you doing here?”

Niall kept the smile firm on his face as he shrugged his shoulders. “Just sightseeing. What’re you girls doing here?”

They grinned and looked at each other nervously. “Um… we’re just here for the weekend to see your show, but we thought that we’d just come to the park first and look around… yeah,” one of them stammered awkwardly.

“Can we take a picture with you?” the other one asked.

“Uh,” Niall said, looking over at Brittany.

But she stepped aside. The last thing Brittany was about to do was say “no,” and make his fans hate her. “Go ahead,” she said, motioning for them to stand with Niall.

“Thanks,” they replied with giddiness, handing Brittany a camera. She snapped the picture quickly, trying to ignore the fact that these two girls were huddled up to her boyfriend as close as they could get.

She handed the camera back to one of the girls as they pulled away from Niall.

“Thanks for the support, girls, see you at the show tonight,” he said with a nod.

“Bye Niall! Thank you!” The two girls skipped off away from them.

Niall turned to Brittany and looked at her sheepishly. “Sorry,” he said.

Brittany waved him off like it was no big deal. She tried to shake the mental image of the two girls hanging all over him out of her mind. She supposed that was something she was going to have to get used to. They were just fans. They didn’t mean anything to him other than the fact that he owed his success and career to them.

And he occasionally had sex with them, as she had discovered earlier in the tour.

But that was all over now, wasn’t it?

“Britt Britt?” Niall’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts.

“Huh?” she asked, looking up at him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, giving her a look. “You’re not bothered by those girls, are you?”

“No,” she said. She didn’t want to be bothered by the girls, that was for sure.

But Niall knew better. It couldn’t have been an easy thing for her to watch, even though she was aware that this was his job. She’d seen him with fans loads of times before, but Niall was sure she was probably feeling a little possessive of him since they had such a short time left together before they had to separate.

He knew, because he was feeling very much the same way. He certainly wouldn’t have liked it if some guys had come up to Brittany and interrupted their date.

Niall draped his arm around Brittany and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I love you,” he assured her. “Now, let’s go find some dolphins.”

Brittany looked up at him and smiled. She loved him so much it nearly made her heart break just thinking about the fact she would be miles away from him in a matter of days. So, she linked her hand with his and continued walking. “I love you too,” she said.

Despite a few more run-ins with fans, Niall and Brittany managed to have a nice day together at Sea World. Eventually they did have to go back to the venue and do the show, which went on relatively normally.

When they made it back onto the bus, they were both exhausted. Despite the obvious cramping of sharing a bunk, they fell asleep in each other’s arms nearly instantly.

As the bus made its drive through the night on the way to Ft. Lauderdale, Brittany and Niall slept soundly. Neither one of them woke up or gave much thought to the fact that this was their last night on a bus and that when they left Florida, they would be saying their goodbyes.