Just A Moment

“Alright! So we just wanted to say thank you to all of our amazing fans, because we all know that One Direction fans are truly the greatest fans in the world!” Liam shouted into the mic, making the crowd go wild. “So I know that this is typically something that we only did on the Up All Night tour, which was INCREDIBLE thanks to you guys!” Another roar erupted from the crowd. “But what we’re going to do now, is answer some Twitter questions!”

I cheered along with the rest of the crowd. I heard Eleanor starting to laugh alongside me and turned to her.

“I swear the things that come up on that screen…” She shook her head with a smile.

“I’m so psyched! I submitted like twenty questions!” Ebony was bouncing up and down.

“Uh, why would you submit a question that you could just ask them in person before or after? It’s not like you’ll never see them…” I laughed.

“Oh…” Ebony’s eyes lit up in realization. “Well, hey, if they answer it onstage, at least millions of people will be witness to it!”

“Touche!” Allie nodded.

“Alright, hush, here’s the first one!” Eleanor smiled looking up at the screen.

“Okay here’s one from Mackenzie and Alyssa,” Louis was saying. I heard a loud bout of screaming erupt from across the arena. “And their question is, ‘We know you do this every time, which is why we have to ask: Best impressions of each other?’ Smiley face, heart heart. Yeah, we do do this every time, don’t we boys?” He slung his arm about Zayn as Niall and Harry burst into a round of laughter on the other side of the stage.

Harry brought his mic to his lips and chuckled, “Louis said ‘doo doo’!”

I could just feel Twitter and Tumblr exploding at that moment.

“Alright, well, I think Zayn should do Harry!” Liam pointed to Zayn.

“But Harry is boooring!” Zayn groaned, dragging out “boring”.

“Hey!” Harry straightened up indignantly.

“I’m doing Niall.” Louis stated, fidgeting with his earpiece stoically.

“Can I be Louis?” Harry smiled excitedly.

“NO!” Louis shouted.

“YES!” Zayn shoved Louis.

“Alright, Niall, who’re you doing?” Liam was pacing amongst the boys, trying to get it all organized.

“Well who’re you doing?” Niall crossed his arms as Liam reached him.

“Uh, I think I have to do Zayn cuz other than me he’s the only one left?”

“YOU LOVE MEH!” Zayn shouted merrily, eliciting screams from the crowd.

“Oh, so then I’m stuck with you, eh?” Niall nodded with a smirk to Liam.

“Shut up!” Liam smiled and shoved him.

I could just feel the Niam and Ziam shippers going crazy. I cringed just thinking of how insane my tumblr dashboard would be when I got home tonight…

“Alright let’s get going already!” Harry said faster than I had ever heard him speak before.

“Well why don’t you go first then?” Louis prompted him.

“Okay, well, I’m Louis ‘The Tommo’ Tomlinson and I’m from Doncaster-” Harry began in a ridiculous mockery of Louis’ accent. Nevertheless, the crowd went absolutely bonkers. I could barely hear the rest of Harry’s little spiel over their screams. Before I knew what was happening, the crowd was going even louder as Louis jumped and almost tackled Harry to the ground.

Eleanor and I were in sync as our hands flew to our mouths, not sure whether to laugh or be concerned.

Ebony and Allie, of course, were cracking up.

“Okay, and on that note, I think we’ll go to Niall!” Liam gestured towards the blonde boy grandly.

“Um, okay, so I’m Liam and I’m from Wolverhampton! I like to spend my time chatting up friends on the Facebook and Twittah! And a shout out to tumblr girls! And, uhm, yea, have you seen Toy Story?” At this point the crowd was too loud to even think over.

I couldn’t even hear Louis’ impersonation of Niall, although it looked pretty accurate from the way he was walking around and making adorably awkward facial expressions.

I could also barely hear Liam’s impression of Zayn on the phone, although I did pick up on, “Yeah what? I’m sorry is that you? Hello? What? Yeah. Um, okay. Yeah. What? Are you there? Is that you? Bye.” Or something like that.

Then came Zayn. And for any of you who have seen or heard Zayn’s impression of Harry, you will understand why I was so excited: it is perfectly spot on. From the deep drawl of his Cheshire accent to his rocky tone to the excruciatingly slow way he draws out each word.

“So, basically…” And the crowd went WILD. Like, frighteningly loud. Like, I’m pretty sure I lost my hearing right then. “…I used to work in a bakery in Holmes Chapel. And I don’t like to wear clothes. I much prefer to walk around naked. It’s just liberating!” I was pretty much on the ground laughing at this point.

“Alright so thank you to Alyssa and Mackenzie who are in… Section H, Row 4, Seats 1 and 2! Make some noise Section H!” Liam pointed to Section H and waved along with the rest of the boys. “There they are!”

“Yay!” Harry smiled, denying all the ovaries in the room existence.

“Next question!” Niall plopped onto the stage in the Indian position.

“Okay here’s one from Kylie. ‘All joking aside, how are all you boys? Heard about your accident and were wondering if you could clear things up for us? Xx’.” Zayn read. “Liam?” He turned to the boy in plaid.

“Okay, well, we have been getting a lot of questions about this and we’ve seen all of your supportive tweets and messages on Twitter and such and so we’d just like to send out a massive thank you to all of our fans for supporting us!” He paused for a cheer. “To answer your question, Kylie, we are all doing quite well! You can see that both Niall and Zayn have casts on their arms, right boys?”

“Do you like it? I think it might be a rather bold fashion statement…” Niall held up his bright green cast for inspection.

“At least it’s not your microphone hand!” Zayn kicked Niall playfully. “Honestly though, don’t worry about us. Niall and my arms are healing gradually and we’ll be back to new in no time!”

“As you all can see, Liam and I escaped completely spiffy except for a couple of bruises and scratches. But we all know that’s just because we’re too sexy for injuries!” Louis winked sassily, sending the arena into a tizzy. “But our lovely Hazza didn’t get off so easy. Isn’t he doing amazing?” The crowd cheered their support for the curly haired boy blushing onstage.

“I’m doing quite well, actually. It’s just my leg, a rib, my arm, and my neck’s a bit sore. But I’m doing alright.” Harry smiled. And for any ovaries that had escaped before? They were certainly gone now.

“That’s our Hazza. A right trooper, yeah?” Louis smiled, patting Harry roughly on the back.

“We really are doing alright, or else we wouldn’t be here tonight!” Liam opened his arms to the arena. “And you guys are amazing and we are so massively thankful for your support! It’s just brilliant and we never would’ve imagined it, so thank you.” He nodded simply.

“Okay here’s the next one!” Niall said from his unmoved position on the stage floor. “This one is from Mikaylah, Erica and Faith.” He stopped reading as the question became visible on the screen. He quickly stood and turned to the management backstage. “Hey, how did this one get on here?”

My heart sank in fear as I read the question. “Who exactly is Hannah Clarke?”

“OH MY GOD HANNAH YOU’RE FAMOUS!” Ebony screeched.

I looked blankly to Eleanor who had a grim look on her face. She looked to me and smiled, saying, “Don’t worry, love, it was probably just some mix up with management. You know how reliable they can be…!”

I had no words, so I looked up onstage. Looking right at me was Zayn. I looked into his eyes at a loss, trying to tell him not to answer the question. I didn’t want to be famous! I just wanted to be little old Hannah Clarke who was that crazy theatre kid at school who loved One Direction!

Zayn put a finger up to me and mouthed, “Hold on,” then turned away to the crowd and said, “Yeah, management is telling us that this was a goof. They didn’t actually want us to answer this question, but if you really want to know who Hannah is just go on YouTube and-” The crowd started booing. They booed Zayn. Um. I had no words.

“No, I want to answer this one!” Harry interjected, bringing the crowd to life again.

“Yeah, me too!” Louis said with a smile, throwing his arm around Harry and smiling directly at me. I shook my head with wide eyes. “Oh, please, love, don’t be bashful!” He said into the mic.

Zayn crossed to the boys and I could tell he was telling them that I didn’t want to be known, but before he could convince them, Louis stepped forward.

“Okay, so Hannah Clarke doesn’t want us to talk about her because she doesn’t want people to know who she is. She doesn’t want all of that stalking and fandom craziness that’s bound to come with it. But at this point, I think we need to just convince her that she is much too special of a person to remain nameless. I mean, for those of you who don’t know, she’s the girl who saved our lives. And for that, she needs to be recognized. What do you think, New York?”

If I was speechless before, I was completely mute by the end of Louis’ little speech. The crowd was going insane, Harry and Louis were smiling hugely, Niall was standing off to the side, arms crossed and looking rather- proud, I guess you could say. Then Liam was clapping along with the crowd. And lastly, Zayn was looking right at me again, mouthing “You okay? You alright?”

I somehow managed to nod and crack a small smile.

“So let’s give a brief overview of the lovely Hannah Clarke, shall we?” Louis brought the crowd’s attention back to him, bringing their volume down as well.

“So basically, when our tour bus crashed, it went into a tree, right? And that tree was just in front of Hannah’s house, or so I’m told-”

“Oh, my god, Harry, you take too long!” Liam interrupted. “Right, so when the tour bus crashed, Hannah and her friend Jessie rushed out and came to help us. We were all completely stunned and didn’t even know which way was up. Not only did she point us in the right way, but she went into the burning bus to get Mr. Slow Speech over here-” he said this ruffling Harry’s hair affectionately, “-and pulled him from the wreck.”

“And for that I am incredibly grateful.” Harry looked right at me as he said this.

“When I saw her go off towards that burning bus, I looked at her and I was like, ‘Who is this girl? Why is she going back there?’ And I didn’t know anything at all, I was completely dazed!” Niall shook his head, stepping forward slowly. “But I knew that Harry was still in there and that this random girl was going in after him. So I followed her and helped her a bit getting him out. But when I offered to carry Harry out she just looked at me and me arm and said, ‘No way in hell! Just get out!’ because that was just before the bus exploded. And in that moment, I had never seen a kinder, more selfless person in me whole life.” Niall ended softly. The stadium was almost dead quiet. It was eerie and odd for a One Direction concert to have such a lull.

“Not sure if anyone really knows this part, but Hannah also carried Harry with Niall away from the bus and they weren’t even back to safety when it exploded. So when she hit the ground, she cracked two ribs and just ask Harry, that is incredibly painful.” Zayn jumped in.

“During this I had no idea what was going on. I dunno if anyone knew this either, but Eleanor was with us on the bus and got a really bad cut on her head. So I had carried her out and was in the house with her and she-” Louis stopped short, looking in our direction. “She stopped breathing. And I completely panicked. But Hannah, over there-” He pointed right at me, drawing the eyes of the entire stadium towards me. “She came into the house, broken ribs and all, and she brought Eleanor back.”

I was suddenly fighting off tears remembering those horrible moments, now being able to look at that broken figure standing in front of me completely healthy and smiling. It was incredible.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is who Hannah Clarke is. A hero.” Louis finished.

The entire arena went totally insane, screaming and clapping… while I was just standing there not sure what to say or do. Had that really just happened? Was there really just a serious and sentimental moment at a bloody One Direction concert?

I think that was when it hit me that I had saved not one, not two, but eight lives that day. That was when it hit me that five of those lives had been the lives of my favorite band. One of them had been the beautiful lively girl who was now enfolding me in a kind embrace. And that’s when it hit me that that one little moment had changed my life forever.

~~*~~

“Thank you, Madison Square Garden!” Niall threw his hands up with the boys and yelled to the screaming audience. Then they ran off backstage as the band played them out.

“That. Was. Amazing!” Ebony jumped up and down.

“Wasn’t it?” Eleanor nodded with a huge smile.

“Probably the best concert I’ve ever been to!” Allie agreed.

“I need food right now.” I said with a straight face.

Everyone burst into laughter, but I just stood there looking at them. I honestly was starving and needed food that instant.

“No, but really guys, I want food-” I was in the middle of my insistence when I felt a firm hand on my shoulder and jumped from surprise.

I turned to see a large man that I recognized from backstage before dressed in a black muscle t-shirt and black pants with an earpiece looking down at the four of us. “I’ve been told to bring you backstage.” He yelled over the remaining buzz of the audience.

We all followed him in silence back through a door to the backstage area where we’d been before. We passed what remained of the snack table we’d demolished before, but a withered turkey finger sandwich caught my eye.

“Just a second!” I tried to dash over to it, but was stopped by that firm arm again.

“I’m sorry, Miss, but my orders are to bring you directly to the boys’ dressing room.”

I gave him the evil eye for a moment before following his direction and falling into step with Ebony.

“Rather bold, giving the big security man sass, dontcha think?”

“You hush, child!” I stuck a finger in Ebony’s face, not being in the mood to be messed with, but I let a smile sweep across my face. “Nobody messes with Momma when she’s hungry!”

“I swear, you sound just like Niall right now!” Eleanor let out a laugh, turning her head to face us.

“I swear, I could eat just like Niall right now!” I retorted with a chuckle.

I suddenly felt two arms fasten around my waist and a chin rest dorkily on my shoulder, saying, “I wouldn’t be throwing words like that around! Them words could get you into some trouble you don’t want to face!”

I spun around and was suddenly staring into the brightest pair of blue eyes that I’d ever seen. Letting my hands press defiantly against his chest I replied, “When it comes to food, I don’t ‘throw’ words around! I mean what I say!” with a cheeky smile.

He stepped away from me only to sling his good arm around my waist and lead me to the dressing room where everyone else was headed, saying on the way, “Well, we’re just going to have to test that!”

“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” I groaned, feeling my stomach rumble.

Niall let out a laugh. “Because you’re in for it!” He answered as we entered the room.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t even consider this if I wasn’t so flacking hungry!” I blurted, my eyes widening at the small basket of goodies on the table.

“Holy shit, did I hear Flack?” Harry spun around, looking everywhere wildly. I was too focused on the basket - the very small basket, mind you - that was sitting not two feet from me.

“Is that seriously all the food that you guys have in here?” I pointed helplessly towards the basket.

“Uh, yeah, but it’s mostly wrappers and empty boxes of sweets cuz Niall was hungry before the show.” Zayn appeared from behind the door, munching on a Snickers bar. “And, I mean, these American chocolate bars? They’re not really much to talk about.” He shrugged, taking another huge bite out of it.

“Niall James Horan I swear if there is nothing left in that basket…” I threatened over my shoulder as I dug into the basket, desperately trying to find SOMETHING to eat.

Yeah I get kind of crazy when it comes down to my food.

“Ooo she broke out the middle name!” I could see Harry grinning and pointing to me, looking impressed.

“I wouldn’t try too hard, love, pretty sure that Zayn took the last of it.” Louis piped from the couch where he was stretched out with Eleanor.

I froze as I discovered that he was right. Slowly, I stood to my full 5’6” and looked up into Zayn’s chocolate eyes.

“Is that the last of the food in this room?” I said lowly.

“Uhhh yeah?” He drawled around a mouthful of Snickers. I swear, my mouth was watering just thinking about it- and I’m not talking about his gorgeousness. No, I am talking about that Snickers.

“Ohh, man, you are so in for it!” Niall laughed from behind me.

“What’s going on?” I heard Liam enter the room but never looked away from Zayn.

“Hannah’s raging hungry and Zayn has the last of the snackies.” Harry updated Liam in that slow manner of his.

“Well, can’t we just go out and get food?” Liam shrugged. I could finally feel his eyes on me and Zayn for the first time. “Oh. I see.”

“I don’t understand why you’re just standing there staring at me.” Zayn said after he had swallowed. It was then that I saw the playful glint in his eyes.

“Oh, you understand exactly why I’m standing here staring at you!” I practically growled.

“Well, ugh, you could just ask for a bite, you know!” He held the bar above my head and went into full ‘Let’s Torture Hannah and Tease the Cheeseballs Outta Her’ mode.

“Are you kidding me?” I looked at him in annoyance.

“C’mon! Ask me nicely!” Not gonna lie, the way he said ‘nicely’ gave me butterflies. Damn those beautiful accents…

“Oh, there’s no way.” I shook my head.

“Then you’re not getting it!” He said bringing the bar slowly to his lips. “There it goooes… And you can’t have any…!”

“For heaven’s sake, you’re behaving like children!” Liam’s hand was suddenly between us, wrenching the candy bar from Zayn’s hands.

“Hey!” Zayn cried indignantly.

“Ugh, thank you!” I sighed in relief, holding my hand out to Liam.

“Oh, no! No, no, no!” Liam shook his head at me and Zayn before stuffing the rest of the Snickers bar in his mouth.

“LIAM!” I shouted before jumping at him. “DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW HUNGRY I AM? I HAVEN’T EATEN IN SEVEN HOURS! SEVEN!”

“Seven fucking hours?” I heard Niall exclaim. Before I knew what was happening, a strong arm was around me, pulling me away from Liam. I looked up to see Niall looking down at me with an amused smile. “We are going to get food NOW!”

“YES!” I shouted, already heading for the door. “Is anybody else coming?”

“I want food!” Harry was already by my side, holding the door for me.

“I think Eleanor and I are going to head back to her hotel and call it a night?” Louis said nonchalantly, nevertheless eliciting the catcalls and provocative comments from the rest of the boys.

The comments only stopped when I interrupted, “Hellooooo? Food, anyone?”

“I would love to, but my mom expected me home, like, two hours ago!” Ebony looked at her watch. I had barely noticed her sitting next to Allie on the couch opposite from Louis and Eleanor. I looked to Allie.

“I’m going home with Rachel. She came to the concert and hasn’t left yet, so I’m just gonna go meet her out front.” Allie responded.

“Okay, well at least let us walk you out?” Liam offered.

“You coming with us Liam?” I asked.

“I dunno. You hurt my feelings, attacking me back there.” He sniffled.

“Well you did take our Snickers bar!” Zayn was suddenly at my side, looking reproachfully at Liam.

“Our?” I squinted at Zayn.

“Well-”

“Just hush!” I held a finger to his lips. “You coming or what, Liam?”

“Yeah, it was my idea, wasn’t it?” He smiled as if it was obvious.

“Alright! Well, let’s get a move on!” I hopped a bit impatiently.

“Let’s go!” Niall took my wrist and began dragging me out the door.

Finally. FOOD.