Final ever part :) Sorry it's taken so long, and thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed along the way, you really made writing this worthwhile and I'm so grateful. AutumnRoseSummerLily this chapter is for you, it's not quite the way you asked but it's what seemed to work best, so hopefully it'll live up to expectations! :)
So what's next? Well, I'm going to continue working on my long-term project Lifelines in London (which is starting to pick up the pace a bit now, I hope!). I'm also working on a fic request from Lizziginne on the theme of Harry and Nikki when they are retired, which I hope to get up soon, and I have a couple of oneshot ideas. But if there's anything else you guys would like me to write, just let me know by PM/review, and provided I think I can make it work then I'm more than happy to write it for you :) You'll have to give me a bit of time to think/plan/write/edit, but I will certainly do my best!
Let me know if you like the conclusion to this/about any future projects you want me to think about xx
Love Flossie xxx
Sheila goes out with her mate Stella,
Gets poured all over her fella,
Because she says that he ain't no better,
Than the next man kicking up fuss,
Drunk, she stumbles down by a river,
Screams calling 'London',
But none of us heard her coming,
Guess the carpet weren't rolled out.
Anne Cunningham padded across the landing slowly towards her son's old bedroom, pausing to listen at the door as she reached it, which had been pulled shut, trying to detect any signs of life within. It was almost 11.30 in the morning now and although both Harry and Nikki should have been at work almost 3 hours ago, both were yet to stir, although that hadn't come as entirely unexpected to Anne, given the events of the previous night. She still didn't know exactly what had happened, only that Nikki had been in trouble and Harry had gone to pick her up, before bringing her back with him. Her son would do anything for Nikki, that much was perfectly clear. God only knew what time the pair of them had arrived back or what Harry's best friend had been through that evening, but when Anne had failed to see any sign of movement from her son's room by 7.30 she had taken the liberty to use Harry's phone to call his and Nikki's boss and explain that the pair of them wouldn't be in work until the afternoon. Leo had been surprisingly calm and understanding about it, all things considered, simply saying it was fine, to let them rest, but to make sure they had dragged themselves out of bed and into work by 2 in the afternoon or else. And so Anne had simply left Harry and Nikki to sleep undisturbed, until now. Now she should probably wake them, she decided, if they were going to stand any chance of getting to work on time.
And so she pushed the door open slowly, silently, peering into the still slightly darkened room and taking in the 2 people occupying it. It took Anne a moment to spot them, curled up across the middle of the bed and half-hidden beneath the covers. Harry was sprawled out down the centre of the bed, lying sideways with his arms out to the left, holding his best friend tightly to his chest, enveloped in a warm embrace. Nikki was faced away from him, almost completely concealed beneath the duvet save for a curtain of blonde curls spread out across the pillow and a smaller hand clutching Harry's own on top of the covers, as if assuring herself that he was still there. And the pair of them just looked so peaceful, so content with simply each other, that Anne couldn't quite bring herself to wake them. She didn't know exactly what had happened to Nikki the night before- she hadn't seen either her or Harry conscious since Harry had left to pick up his best friend- but she did know that Nikki had been out on a date that night, Harry had told her that much. A date which hadn't quite worked out, she assumed, judging by the bag of soaked-through clothes and damp blankets she had found beside the washing machine that morning. Anne knew from Harry's past visits that Nikki's boyfriends rarely ever lasted more than a month or two: Nikki herself seemed to be all Harry ever talked about these days when he came over. It didn't take a genius to tell that he was in love with her; sometimes Anne wondered if the whole world could see it but Harry himself. And Nikki… Anne had only met Nikki a handful of times, but her son talked about her so much that she sometimes felt as if she had known her son's best friend her whole life. She knew about her family, or rather, lack of, she knew all the pain she had been through in her lifetime and strongly suspected that Harry was all she had, in his role of best friend or as something more. He was the one she had trusted to come to her rescue in the middle of the night; that had to be deeper than friendship… didn't it? She had never seen quite enough of her before to gage whether Nikki felt the same way as Harry did, but now, seeing them curled up in bed together, without a care in the world, she found it impossible to believe that each was not completely and utterly head-over-heels in love with the other. It was as if during consciousness, the pair of them were too afraid to act on their feelings for each other: afraid of rejection, of looking stupid, of mucking everything up or being incapable of maintaining a healthy relationship. But whilst they were asleep, no such barriers of fear existed. Whilst asleep Harry and Nikki were free to show their affection for one another, the fact that they would remember nothing of it when they woke up acting as a safety blanket of sorts, protecting them from all those fears which stopped them from acting on their feelings in consciousness. And as Anne pulled the door to once more, telling herself that she would give Harry and Nikki another 15 minutes or so before waking them, her only wish was that one day they would stop being so frightened of failure and realize what had been right under their noses the entire time.