Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, any other characters in this story or Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl, but I enjoyed the distraction with which they supplied me while I was writing this story.

Songs for Macy

"You know you really don't have to help, Macy. You've done more than enough to make sure this party happens already."

"Oh, that's alright, Kevin," Macy chirped as she picked up some empty glasses from the floor. "I want to help. Besides, it's really not fair that you should have to do this all by yourself."

"I don't mind." Kevin shrugged as he brushed his arm over the table in front of him, pushing empty cups and bowls into the awaiting garbage bag he held with his other hand. "It could wait until tomorrow but then Joe would just be whining the entire time we clean, and Nick would just be glaring, so this is easier."

"Where are Nick and Joe anyway?"

Kevin smiled at the question.

"What do you mean where are Nick and Joe? Where's that Jonas radar of yours? Is it broken?"

"My Jonas radar is perfectly fine, thank you very much. It's just that you're like, less than two feet away from me, and that's too distracting for me to be able to keep track of Joe and Nick as well."

Kevin laughed as he trailed behind the small girl, holding the garbage bag open for her to drop things inside.

"That's fair enough, I suppose. Joe took Stella out because for some reason she suddenly had a craving for tacos. And Nick, you will notice," he told her as he freed one of his hands to grab hold of Macy's shoulder and spin her in the direction of the recording booth, "is hard at work, inspired by Joe singing to Stella, or something like that."

"Aww," Macy cooed. "That's so sweet. Is there some way we can hear what he's doing in there?"

"There is," Kevin answered reluctantly, "but I don't recommend it. Nick would kill us. He's really not that fond of people listening to half finished songs unless he's asking them for help."

Macy's eyes widened at the thought of doing something Nick wasn't fond of.

"Well, we can pass on that experience then."

"Good call."

"Though that does make me think…"

Kevin waited for the end of the sentence that simply didn't seem to be coming.

"Yes?" he finally asked.

"Well, Joe sang to Stella. And Nick grabbed the mike at one point in the evening when he decided that someone was just not doing justice to Elvis Costello, but we failed to hear from you, Kevin."

"Well, I didn't see you step up to the plate either, Macy."

"That was for everyone else's safety, and you know it as well as I do."

Kevin smiled and ducked his head to keep his chuckle from her. "Well, it's just you and me now, and I've already heard you sing a few times, so if you really want to give it a spin, you go right ahead."

"Don't try to turn the tables on me. We were talking about you singing. Which song do you want to sing?"

"I'm cleaning right now."

Macy grabbed the bag from his hands and threw it across the room.

"Oh. Now you're not. What song?"

"We really don't have time right now, Macy."

"There's always time for a song, Kevin. So, what do you want to sing?"

"How about I whistle while we clean?"

"How about no," Macy said as she sat on the floor and flipped through the songbook that had come with the machine that had been the centrepiece to that evening's party. "You better make a choice soon before I choose for you."

"Come on, Macy. You don't want Joe whining when he comes home, or Nick with the glare when he comes out of the booth."

"Neither of them are here to help, so neither of them have anything to say about the fact that the cleaning may not be done by the time they want it to be. Now stop arguing with me. I may be tiny, but I'm determined. Ooh, this one!" She jumped from her spot on the floor and over to the machine, fiddling with a few buttons. "Come on, Kevin."

"I really don't want to, Macy."

"Don't make me think that you aren't really thankful for all the help I've given you guys in the past few days."

"You're going to go there?"

"I'm going to go there," she agreed with a nod, swinging the microphone in his direction.

Kevin held out his arms in front of him in hope of stopping her from accidentally hitting him with the thing. It wasn't sports equipment, but that didn't mean Macy wouldn't be able to find some way of getting it to cause him some kind of physical damage.

He sighed and waited for the first words to appear on the screen. They did owe Macy a big thanks, and if she chose a song as payback, well he supposed there were much worse things in the world.

He hadn't even noticed what song she'd chosen until the first words appeared on the screen in front of him. Kevin took the time to send her an amused look, already knowing what he was supposed to be singing, and was met with a shy shrug from Macy, cheeks ablaze.

"In the misty morning fog with our, our hearts a thumpin' and you, my brown eyed girl, you my brown eyed girl," Kevin sang, shaking his head. He barely watched the screen, keeping most of his attention on Macy who was tapping her foot along with the beat.

His eyes gleamed as he saw her mouth move with the words, never actually daring to emit a sound. She looked amazed, but she looked aware. There was no far off gleam like the one he had sometimes seen when she went into Jonas-head mode and forgot that there was anyone else in the world other than the three singing boys she idolized.

He made it through the song, finishing to the sound of her applause and wishing that he'd had a guitar with him. He always preferred strumming the last note to singing the last key.

"Wow," Macy breathed as she watched him lay the microphone on top of the machine. "That was… wow."

"Thanks," Kevin answered behind a blush of his own.

"How come you don't sing more? You've got a great voice, Kevin. I mean, I know I'm not the best judge in the world, but… wow."

Kevin shrugged. "I like my parts in the songs we sing. I'd prefer to concentrate on the guitar anyway. Joe likes being in the front, and that's cool. I'm just not the lead singer."

"But you could be."

"It sounds way too exhausting to me," he told her, shaking his head and finding his discarded garbage bag.

"It can't be any more exhausting than running and twirling around a stage with a guitar strapped to your neck."

"I'm fairly certain it can," Kevin argued.

"Hmm," Macy huffed.

"Don't pout," Kevin told her with a laugh as he reached out to chuck her chin and dislodge her lip. "You've still got Joe and Nick running around in the spotlight for you to admire."

"What if I don't want to admire Joe and Nick? What if I want to admire you? Did you ever think of that, Kevin Lucas?"
"What?"

"What if I want to hear your voice and I can't because you're barely singing and I have to replay the one song I can really hear you on over and over again until it's got ten times the played number that any of the other songs on my mp3 player have and it makes it look like that's the only song I ever listen to when it's really not but it's just that I never get to the end of any other song before I feel the need to skip it and go back to that one? Huh? Ever think of that?"

"What?"

"I don't know." Macy threw her hands in the air. She shook her head and grabbed the garbage bag from Kevin. "We should be cleaning before your brothers start whining."

They worked quickly, on separate sides of the room at first until all the edges of the upstairs were clean, and they had no choice but to move closer together. Kevin would look up every time he accidentally brushed Macy's hand or arm. She barely seemed to notice him, focussing on the task at hand.

"What are you singing?"

Both heads shot up at the sound of the new voice.

"What?"

"What are you singing?" Nick asked again, as he cleaned over the work Kevin had already done, noticing objects a few inches off their original spot and pieces of paper that had been too small for Kevin to bother with.

"I'm not singing."

"You were. You weren't singing loudly, but you were singing when I came out of the booth."

"I wasn't—"

"You were singing," Macy said softly. "I don't think you realised it, but you were singing."

"Oh."

They said nothing else, leaving Nick's question unanswered. He shook his head, and did what he could to initiate some conversation as he helped Kevin and Macy clean the room, too confused to bother glaring at anyone.

***

Macy had a book of Nick, Kevin reminded himself.

Macy had ripped off Joe's clothes when Stella had been testing her stelcro, Kevin reminded himself.

Macy had been pretty upset about his lack of solos, Kevin tried not to remind himself.

He also tried not to notice the little things that previous to Stella's surprise party, had always managed to escape him.

He tried not to notice how Macy would often sit next to him at the lunch table. He tried not to notice how she smelled of vanilla and lavender. He tried not to notice how wide her eyes would become when she was talking to him. He tried not to notice how she was careful never to actually touch Nick or to interrupt Joe, though she did both frequently and openly with him.

He tried not to notice a lot of things that he simply could no longer avoid.

Like the fact that every time they appeared in her notebook, Nick's name was in cursive, Joe's in colour and his in bold that had been traced over and over again until the ink would bleed onto the next page. Or the fact that Macy's head would bob and her lips move along with whatever song was playing from her earphones to her brain, until the part where he knew his voice should appear after which she would completely stop moving as though concentrating on the sound.

He also noticed that guys liked Macy. Guys liked Macy a lot. Whether they be athletic, smart, musical or macabre, they all seemed to notice the small bubble of energy. Who wouldn't when she kept appearing all over the place, winning the trophies and bringing good cheer? He felt guilty when he realised he was happy she kept refusing them all, barely noticing most of the attention that came her way.

He noticed that she saved her last cookie for him at lunchtime. That she tucked back the hair on the side of her head that would screen her from him, leaving the other side free even if it meant putting up a barrier between herself and Joe or Nick. That she would rise on her toes to get his attention if his eyes wandered from her while they were talking. That her entire body moved with shock whenever his skin would brush against hers.

He noticed a lot of things about Macy, most notably, the way his stomach swirled in her presence and a smile would grace his lips at the thought of the small girl.

***

"Do you have a favourite sport?" Nick asked Macy one day as they were eating lunch.

Macy's brow furrowed at the question, one of several that day.

The boys had taken Stella's panicked announcement that she didn't know what to get for Macy's birthday as a warning that they should really start thinking about something to get their #1 super fan and latest best friend. So, they had been spending all morning asking her random questions, trying to figure out what she might want.

"I don't know," Macy finally said with a shrug. "It depends on my mood that day, I guess."

Nick sighed.

"What about favourite subject in school?" Joe asked.

"Gym," she answered, with wide eyes that told him he should have been able to guess that one.

"What about favourite Jonas band member?"

Macy blushed and suddenly became very interested in her sandwich.

"You all know everyone loves Frankie best," she answered.

Kevin noticed that she didn't actually say Frankie was her favourite.

***

In the end, their questions didn't lead to much information they could use. So, Nick got Macy a pair of tickets to a baseball game, Joe went clothes shopping with Stella, and Kevin gave Macy a new chain that wouldn't break so she wouldn't lose her lucky #1 charm again.

With Stella's help, they threw Macy a party at the firehouse and though Big Rob was a little wary at the amount of girls so close to his charges, the balloon animals and four different cakes all in the shape of various sports balls proved distraction enough for the girls who got to see the boys at school every day anyway.

By the end of the evening, the house was a mess, Joe and Stella were missing, and Nick was once again locked in the recording booth.

"Macy, seriously, it's your birthday, you aren't supposed to be cleaning. Would you stop that?"

"I helped make the mess, I can help clean it," she said with a stubborn tilt of her head.

"What if I told you you still had a gift left to unwrap? Would that distract you from cleaning?"

"Another gift? You guys have already done way too much for me. I can't accept another gift."

"Well, you're going to have to, because I got it for you." Kevin smiled as he reached into the top of his three bunks and returned to her with a colourful bag displaying a parade of jungle animals.

Macy grinned as she accepted it from him, her hands playing with the bag, but never daring actually trying to open the thing. Finally, she tugged at the ribbon that was keeping the gift closed.

"It's nothing big," Kevin warned as he bit his lip. "It was just a little something extra. It's ridiculous really, but I thought it might be something you would enjoy, so I figured why not."

"It's a present," Macy told him as she struggled with the knot in the ribbon, "I'm sure I'll love it whatever it is."

Kevin watched warily as she freed the ribbon and delved her hand in the bag. He kept his eyes on her face as she scrunched her nose in confusion and then let her jaw drop open.

"What is it?"

"It's a CD," Kevin told her, confused that she'd need help figuring that out.

"No, of course I know that. I meant of what? Old songs? New songs? Mix songs? Your songs? Someone else's songs?"

"Songs," Kevin told her with a shrug.

"Can we listen?" she asked in a child's whisper, her eyes glancing quickly over to Nick in the recording booth.

"Sure." Kevin grabbed the CD from her and dropped it in the nearby player. "Nick's got the door closed in there. He won't even hear it, let alone be disturbed by it."

Macy clapped her hands and gave a little hop as she waited for the sound of music to take over the room. Kevin watched her carefully, and when the first sound of a human voice finally came through, he understood what people meant when they talked about someone melting. Macy's entire body softened. She didn't fall and she didn't faint, but all the excitement that had been in her body and all the energy that had been bouncing out of her simply washed away until she was left swaying to the music as though there wasn't a single bone to her body.

"It's you," she whispered at the first pause of his voice for a guitar solo.

Kevin shrugged as he turned back to the mess he had been cleaning. "I know it's just about the cheapest gift I could ever get you, but I thought you might like it."

"You thought I might like it?"

Kevin cringed at the way Macy's voice rose with the words.

"So it was stupid," he said, moving back toward the CD player to turn it off. "I'm sorry. I just thought that it might be cute. And really it's a super collector's edition because no one else in the world is going to have it and…"

"Kevin," Macy tried to interrupt as she moved between him and the CD player before he could turn off the music.

"I just thought it was something nice that I could do since we weren't able to figure out anything you really wanted despite all the questions we've been asking you since Stella first talked about your birthday. And you like music anyway, so anything musical should really have…"

"Kevin," Macy tried again as she shifted to be directly in his eye line.

"…been a safe bet, but I guess not if you don't like this gift. I can get you something else, Macy. I can find you something else that we put out in England or Australia or something they don't sell around here that you would—"

Macy let out a sigh and grabbed his face between her hands, giving up on any other chance of interrupting him. Kevin continued to ramble as she pulled his head down and pressed her lips against his. She felt him mumble against her mouth for a few seconds before he finally stopped and his arms wrapped around her waist. Macy held him against her until she suddenly realised she needed air to survive.

"So it's an okay gift?" Kevin asked her, his forehead pressed against hers as they both took in deep gulps of air.

"It'll do for this year. If you're my boyfriend next year, though, you'll have to do better than that."

"Boyfriend?"

"Yeah. I've decided that was also part of your present to me for this year."

Kevin nodded. "Wait. Better than that? That was pretty good. How am I supposed to do better than that?"

"I don't know. But you're the one who set the bar so high to start with."

"All right. Let's just stand here and keep making out until Nick notices and writes a song about it. A song inspired by you will be your present for next year."

"Wouldn't that be a gift from Nick?"

"Are you objecting to making out with me?"

"I'm going to shut up now," Macy said as she let Kevin pull her to him.

"Best gift ever," she mumbled against his lips.