MidMay-MidAugust, 2004

The Kennishs' were preparing for a cruise- packing, planning activities, and the adults had to decide if they wanted to spend the whole summer on had been the plan, anyways; Toby had decided he'd rather stay home, Kathryn wasn't ready to leave her oldest son, but Bay had, for once, wanted to go.

The mother of two was torn. She couldn't leave either of her babies, but she couldn't force Toby to go, he'd spend the whole trip mopping and it would make Bay upset.

While she knew her daughter wasn't one to show her emotions in public, she also knew that under the cold exterior, there was someone who couldn't help but let small thing get to her. That's what made her, in Kathryn's opinion, a great artist.

The mother looked helplessly at her husband who let out a sigh. "You go with Bay, I'll stay with Toby."

Bay clenched her mother's hand, her brown eyes wide. She did want to go, but she also wanted to spend time with her brother. After all, two years did make a diffidence. He thought himself to be 'to cool' to hang out with her, except for when they were home- even then it was mostly teasing and making each others life miserable.

She had often wondered what it would be like, to be an only child, then she realised she wouldn't have liked it. Who else would she go to if she had a problem and didn't want to tell her parents? While they were obviously different, and not just appearances but personality too, they were family and if there's one thing they'd learned, it was that family can tease family, but strangers couldn't.

During the summer was usually when Toby would spend more times with her than during the school year. This summer, however, he wanted to learn the guitar and couldn't do that on a cruise. So, he'd said some hurtful things to his sister, made her almost cry, just so that she'd go have fun without him. The hurt look in her eyes had made him want to take it back, learning the guitar could wait a summer, couldn't it?

"Is something wrong, honey?" Her mother asked, kneeling next to her child.

"No, Mommy." She whispered. "I just... Wanted to know when we were leaving."

Kathryn met her husband's eyes. "We leave once school gets out." She answered with a small smile.

Bay looked miserable. "Two more weeks?" She complained. "Why can't we go now?"

"Your grades aren't good enough," John gave his daughter a hard look.

Bay blushed slightly but didn't say anymore.

"The school year will come to an end soon enough." John said, his hard look softening.

XxXxXxX

The rest of May, and part of June, passed quickly. Before Bay knew it, she and her mother were boarding the ship. She gave her brother and father one last, long, hard hug. She looked back at them before letting her mother lead them to their room. "Try and have a good time, sweetheart."

Bay nodded and looked around, a small smile curling her lips. She could already tell she would have a whole lot of things to draw about, then if she really felt like it, once she got home she could paint it and see how it looked.

She felt a slight jerk and she almost tumbled back into her mother. It took her a few moments to realise her mother was laughing and that the boat had started moving.

"Get ready, darling, we're going swimming."

"Isn't it going to be dark soon?"

"not for a couple more hours."

XxXxXxX

After swimming, they returned to their room and took showers. The suit was large enough that it housed two bathrooms, along with two separate rooms. It had originally been rented for the two adults to have their own space, and the two kids to have their own as well.

Kathryn didn't know if Bay would be sleeping on her own, in their house it was something different, something familiar to her. Here, she was somewhere new- with a hell of a lot more people than the four people, total, who resided in their rather large home. Through, thankfully, they didn't all share the same room.

The dinner that night was more than they could eat- and that was splitting a meal. They ordered muscles- which Kathryn had always wanted her children to try- and crab. She had to help her daughter open the crab, and show her how to get the meat out of it. She ordered a margarita, while Bay ordered a root beer shake.

XxXxXxX

After a week on the cruise, everything seemed fine. That was, until, Bay fell ill and spend the whole half of the second week miserable in the infirmary with her mother always at her side, only leaving once in a while to go to the bathroom. The eight year old hadn't felt up to eating anything, so Kathryn scarcely ate as well, just a fruit on her way back from the bathroom.

What scared Kathryn more than her child not eating was the constant puking and headaches, even the stiffness of her daughter's body that stayed even when Bay was sleeping.

On the fourth day of Bay's illness, which the doctors and even Kathryn thought of as the 'flu' but didn't tell the child, she awoke and couldn't hear her mother's soft breaths. She should have heard them, seeing as her mother was holding her. She'd noticed her hearing hadn't been working as well, for the past two days, though she failed to tell her mother.

"Mommy?" she cried, unaware that she'd practically screamed it, at least until Kathryn jerked awake, her eyes wide with slight panic before she realised her daughter wasn't being harmed. Her heart sank at the next words her daughter said.

"i can't hear! I can't hear anything!"

"It's okay, Bay." she tried comforting her, wanting her daughter to relax. They'd get through this, no matter what.

She could see the panic and tears intensify in her youngest's eyes, and realised she hadn't comforted her at all. That's when the reality sank in, her daughter couldn't hear anything.

XxXxXxX

They had a test done on Bay, to make sure that she really couldn't hear or if it was just a side effect of her illness. It wasn't. After doing further testing, they realised it wasn't the flu, instead it had been meningitis, the bacterial kind. The doctors set to work to cure the child- realising it was a miracle she hadn't died for their short sightedness, though the damage had been done and not ruling out that it was anything more the flu had cost the eight year old her hearing.

After she was cured of the illness, she was discharged and her mother helped her back to their room. Since the day that Bay had woken and realised she couldn't hear, she hadn't spoken a word. How were they going to communicate, without being able to talk?

They had another month before the cruise made a round trip back to New York, where they'd have to take a plane back to Kansas. Kathryn was had been on the phone with John when they made their stop in Hawaii for a few hours. Her husband wanted her to come home and she almost agreed, until Bay mentioned she didn't want to go home and be laughed at by her brother even more. Kathryn had let out a sigh at that, Bay wasn't really afraid her brother would laugh at her- she just wanted to get used to being deaf before having to face her friends. Plus, after doing some research she realised she wanted to learn American Sign Language, more commonly known as ASL.

Kathryn had sighed, "John, she wants to learn American Sign Language."

She could hear her husband sigh on the other side as well. "We'll get the best teacher for her, and for us. We'll get through this. We'll talk about Cochlear implants as well, when you two get home."

"John, I don't think it would be smart for her to have a surgery at this age- maybe in a few years, when she's gotten used to the fact that she'll never hear like she used to again."

Her husband was quiet for a few moments, "Not hearing the same as before has to be better than living in silence."

Kathryn was about to respond when Bay tugged on her free hand to get her attention, at her daughter's questioning look, she took out a notebook and wrote down what was going on, what her father wanted. At the panicked look, and the swift shake of her head, the mother sighed. "She still doesn't want to come home yet, John. Why don't we let her have the rest of the summer before having to make decisions."

"I'd feel better if you were home, where I could keep an eye on my two girls."

your father still wants us to come home she wrote on the paper again, before handing it to her child. Bay frowned but resigned. Her father would push until he got what he wanted. It didn't help that he was being exceptionally protective of her, ever since he learned of her losing her hearing on an emergency call home from the boat.

She nodded at her mother who then told John. The plane tickets where bought as soon as the couple got off the phone and they went to gather their luggage. No one asked questions- it hadn't gone unknown that a child, hearing, had entered the cruise and the same child was now deaf and getting off to go home with her mother.

a.n

For one thing, I thought this would be an interesting story line to at least start. For another I got it while watching 3x22. I just couldn't deal with Bay being Daphne and Daphne being Bay or Toby being called Tobis and Emo. The only thing I dealt with was Angelo Junior. All though, I might start a story where I give more background on the history before, and after, the 'unswitch' happened in the Alternate Timeline. :D

Also. I don't own Switched at Birth. Sobs.