(No Control | Holding Me Ransom - 89 - Take You To The Start) 

Grimmy gives me a gentle thump on the back as I lick my lips nervously and press them together. Waiting for Jess to walk into the room feels like an eternity. My heart is pounding so hard, I can actually hear the blood whooshing through my ears. Ellie is sitting on the arm of the sofa in the same place as last time and she catches my eye and grins, giving a discreet thumbs up. I smile back nervously, my eyes darting towards the door waiting for Jess to walk in. 

I see Callie first. She has entered the room in front of Jess, just like last time. She catches my eye and gives me a small smile and a nod. I return both gestures and then wait for Jess to appear behind her, a couple of inches shorter, and blonde to Callie's dark. My breath catches in my throat as I catch sight of her. She looks breathtaking, and oh my God, she's wearing the Fuck Me dress. Her hair is curled around her shoulders and I'm pretty sure that's the bracelet I bought her for her birthday twinkling on her wrist. She's looking directly at Ellie Goulding with a mixed expression of realisation and emotion. Ellie turns to look at me, beaming, and Jess follows her gaze, her eyes locking with mine. She looks ready to burst with emotion. I feel exactly the same.

"Hi," I greet her, resisting the urge to ruin the moment by adding fancy seeing you here. 

"Hi," she replies, her voice wavering and her bottom lip twitching a couple of times. 

I'm suddenly lost for words, feeling like I should explain all of this but understanding that I don't need to because she gets it, she understands. She knows exactly what I have done. 

"I thought you were in Holmes Chapel," she says after a moment, her eyes never leaving mine. 

"And I thought you didn't want to do anything in particular tonight," I smirk, my heart pounding a little harder.

"I didn't think you'd remembered," she mumbles, and I step towards her so she will hear my reply. 

"You didn't think I remembered the day I met the love of my life?"

Her lip is definitely trembling now. 

"You said... You said you were at your mum's for the weekend?"

"I know," I murmur. "I had to say that to stop you planning a big surprise for me. I wanted to do this for you, to make everything right."

Her brow twists in confusion. "But... How did you know I was planning something? What do you mean, make everything right?"

I pull her towards me, taking her in my arms and moving her out of the way of a couple of Grimmy's friends squeezing past us on their way to the kitchen. "Callie tipped me off. She knew what I was planning, and she didn't want you to get carried away planning something of your own," I tell her. "So she told me you wanted to surprise me, and planted the idea with you that I might be busy. So I told you I was. It wasn't a complete lie - I did go up to see Mum on Thursday, but I did that because I needed to be back in London today, and I needed to celebrate Mothers Day with her early."

Her eyes widen as this sinks in and she glances around the room at everyone around us who are chatting away and taking no notice of us. 

"So all this..?" She trails off and I tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, turning her face back towards me. Now is the time to explain. 

"Remember you said you wanted to start again? To wipe the slate clean; to erase the bad memories?" (She nods.) "Well, obviously we can never completely erase the past, and this last year has proved to be the most eventful one of my life, but for all the right reasons." I pause, taking a breath before I speak as I want to phrase this right. "I would relive the heartache ten times over, just for the happy times we had. I can't turn the clock back, or change what happened, but this is the nearest I could get. I wanted to bring you back here, to where it all began, and start us again. Leave the mistakes and the bad memories in the past where they belong and move forward with the happy ones, starting with the best one of all: the moment I first saw you, from across the room. Because... well, I could tell that you were curious."

Boom! Nailed it. Tears are trickling down her face and she lets out a half-laugh, half-sob. 

"It's been a rollercoaster of a year, Jess," I smile. "We've faced more than our fair share of problems, and we've still got more upheaval to come when the world finds out we're together. I know only last week you were faced with a load more trolling because you were pictured with Louis at Heathrow. I can't erase that either, but I hope in time we'll be able to look back and laugh at some of it, because it made us as strong as we are now."

She shakes her head slowly. "Harry... You don't need to worry about me walking away from you. I don't want you to feel like you've always got to make things up to me. We've moved past all that, together."

"I know. But I never want you to feel as though I've taken your forgiveness for granted -"

"I know you haven't!" she interrupts, squeezing my tightly around the waist. "I know how hard we both worked to resolve the problems we had. I don't think for one minute you took any of that lightly." She rests her head on my chest for a moment, and then I take her hands in mine and she looks up at me again. 

"I just saw today as an opportunity for us to start again, and do things properly this time," I explain. "Like I said, I know we can't forget everything that happened, and actually I wouldn't want to, because it comprises our history. But this is sort of a way for me to give you what you wanted: to start fresh, to draw a line underneath the drama and heartache of last year and start our second year together on the right foot."

It might sound weird that I wouldn't change this stuff. But if we hadn't been through this last year with such waves, would we be together now? I'm a big believer in things happening for a reason, and while I regret the heartache and pain I caused her, and I would never ever do it again, I also think that maybe this worked out this way because it made us both realise that we can survive anything. Maybe I needed to lose her to realise just how much she means to me. Maybe she needed me to fuck up royally and hurt her so I fell from the One Direction pedestal? Who knows? All I do know is, we feel absolutely rock solid, and tonight feels like the final part of this chapter before we begin the next. 

"This is so unbelievably amazing, Harry," she whispers, glancing around again. "How did you manage to pull this off? In exactly the same place?"

"He called in a few favours," Grimmy supplies from next to me. 

"I asked Grimmy to put me in touch with the guy whose party it was originally," I elaborate. "I told him I would foot the bill, if he did the same thing again with the same music and as many of the same people as possible. And with the utmost discretion, of course."

"You're not going to make me spill my drink on you again are you?" she grins. "Twice?"

"No, you're going to bankrupt me if you keep ruining my clothes," I grin back. "Do you know how difficult it was to find an almost identical shirt after you wrecked the last one?"

"And you were in on this too?" Jess turns to Callie who is standing next to Grimmy. 

"Yeah, well I owed it to you to help make things right," she mutters, glancing at me. I try to keep my face impassive. 

"Make things right? What do you mean?" Jess asks. 

"Well he fucked up that many times, he's lucky he's still got his own legs," Calvin supplies, and my heart drops to my toes. 

"You two weren't here last time!" Jess points out. 

"No, but Maddie wanted to come, so I was the chaperone," Calvin replies. "And... well, I suppose he hasn't fucked up in a while, and this is sort of my way of supporting your relationship."

Hasn't fucked up in a while... what a vote of confidence. But Jess looks surprised and pleased so I give her what I hope is a similar look in return while Calvin nods reluctantly in my direction. I nod back, seriously, and then turn back to Jess. 

"Look, I'm not going to do anything crazy like ask you to marry me or anything," I assure her. "I know it's way too soon for anything like that. But what I am saying, is that I'm not going anywhere, and I think we're amazing together. And this is my way of making everything right, for all the pain I put you through last year, for all the hassle you've put up with from the media, for every time you've stood by me when you probably shouldn't have, and for finding it in your heart to forgive me after I hurt you in the worst way imaginable. I needed to put it right; I needed to take it back to the beginning to start again and show you that I won't mess up this time. I would do anything in the world to make you happy."

"You do make me happy," she smiles through teary eyes. "No one in the world could make me happier."

It's time for the One Direction merch. The DJ has been keeping an eye on me and I give him the nod. I take Jess's hand and lead her carefully through the other people standing and chatting to where I have stationed my laptop with all her pictures of us. 

"What are you doing?" she asks as I press the Escape key to fire it up. 

"I've got something for you," I tell her. "I hope I've done the right thing. I wasn't sure if this would be what you wanted, but I think you'll be happy." Oh God, I really hope I've done the right thing. I hope she loves this and doesn't run screaming from the room. I glance over at the DJ who is waiting for my signal, and nod again. He smoothly transitions into the opening bars of Perfect as the slideshow starts on the laptop screen, the first image being the one Jess took of us on the sunlounger at my house the first time she came to visit me in LA. 

She looks momentarily confused. "Did I send this to you?" And then as the image changes to the next shot of us both smiling at the camera on the same sunlounger she takes a deep breath. "Oh my God, I thought these were gone forever! I deleted everything when we broke up. How did you get them?" 

Oh God. Here's the part where she might just freak out. I feel a knot beginning in my stomach as I explain.

"I know you deleted them - Callie told me. I know you regretted getting rid of everything associated to me. So I enlisted her help to get everything back for you." 

What do you mean?" She stares at my face and then back at the screen where our text conversations have starting flashing up. "

Hey, it's Jess x

How do I know it's definitely you? You could be a crazy stalker ;) x

Ditto. You're the one who sneaked your number in my phone without telling me. Maybe you're a crazy stalker? x

"Oh my God - Harry - are these all our texts?!" she squeals, her mouth open in surprise. 

"Yeah," I smile, mentally crossing my fingers. "This is going to sound a bit creepy now, but I asked Callie to get them from your iCloud. I hoped everything would be there, but I didn't want to invade your privacy. I asked her to do it for me, because I wanted to get it all back for you, if you wanted it."

Tears have spilled onto her cheeks again as she watches the images and texts appear and disappear on the screen. 

"This is just... This is just.." She's lost for words, but thankfully the music comes to her rescue. 

Baby I'm perfect, it supplies, and she chuckles. 

"Perfect," she confirms. 

Well, thank fuck for that. 

"You're not completely scared off by my stalker-like tendencies?" I check. 

"Of course not!" she cries, turning to slide her arms around my neck and squeezing me tightly. "I can't believe you managed to retrieve all of this stuff. I didn't even think of looking at iCloud. I just assumed it was gone forever when I deleted it. I regretted it so much once we sorted everything out."

"I know," I whisper, running my hands over her silky soft hair. "And... there's something else I've got for you." 

She pulls back from me to look up into my eyes and I bend down to retrieve the gift bag that contains all her One Direction stuff and of course my Green Bay top. I'm not worried anymore - I know she will love this just as much as she loves the pictures, and I'm proved right when she opens the bag, peeps inside and lets out a squeal of emotion.

I'm so glad I did this. I'm so glad I didn't give up all the times Callie put obstacles in my way. I'm so glad I made every part of this special, because Jess wholeheartedly deserves it and I am so happy to be the one who makes her happy. 

---***---

Not much writing has happened this week as my house has been the house of lurgy! Nearly all of us have been poorly, but hopefully we're over the worst of it now and all I need to do is fight the pull of I'm A Celebrity (any Brits reading - do you watch it??) and knuckle down to get the last few chapters boxed off! Easier said than done!!