title: a change in the weather
inspiration: A Drop in the Ocean- Ron Pope, Sky's Still Blue- Andrew Belle, Oh My Stars- Andrew Belle
disclaimer: I own nothing.
"She loves you, you know." Lester comments. Ally has fallen asleep on her maroon bedsheets, as she always does on Sunday mornings.
He nods. "I know, and I love her,too." He glances over at his sleeping beauty, smiling a little bit.
"I just wish she could hear me say that."
/
The first days are hard.
Technically, she can talk, she just chooses not to. It's the quietest she's been in all the time he's known her.
It scares him a little bit.
She spends countless hours staring out her bedroom windows and he simply watches her, occasionally grabbing her hand.
"Ally?" He asks foolishly. How stupid.
He nudges her shoulder instead and when she turns to meet his gaze, her eyes are glassy.
He pulls one of her old sketchbooks out from the drawer in her nightstand and a black Sharpie.
You ok?
She takes the sketchbook and scrawls out a No.
/
At the three-week point, she starts to talk again. Her voice.. it's different. The Ally he knew before had spoken in high-pitch, drawn out a lot of her vowels, and it had been one of her more distinctive qualities. It was adorable.
Now, her voice is monotonous, or it goes up in pitch at the wrong times. At first, he doesn't understand, but then he realizes- she can't hear herself. She has absolutely no clue what she sounds like.
"I sound weird, don't I." She asks.
He shakes his head and gives her a thumbs up, but even she can tell he's bluffing.
Hot, fat tears roll down her porcelain cheeks and he takes her into his arms, pressing her head against his shoulder as he strokes her hair.
"I hate this." She says, squeezing him tighter. He kisses the top of her head.
"It'll be okay. It'll be okay." He whispers.
It doesn't matter. She can't hear him anyways.
/
It takes her a while to even process this. She's never going to be able to hear again. She can't hear cars honking. Everything anyone says is silent. They all look like goldfish, gasping for air with every word they speak.
But she's the one who's drowning.
Her whole world is silent now. All the beautiful things in life cannot be heard by her anymore, only seen.
It infuriates her how for seventeen years of her life, she took it for granted. She took the music and the chatter of customers and the sound of rain on her windows for granted, because she was selfish enough to believe she'd have them for as long as she lived.
She hates herself for that.
She pounds on her bed, punches the pillows, screams as loud as she can until her throat is raw and her father is in her bedroom, holding her and attempting to console her.
But it doesn't matter how loud she screams. She couldn't hear herself, anyways.
/
Her head is laying on the keys of the piano, emitting a long, high-pitched sound.
"Alls, what is that-oh." He stops, seeing his best friend's position and realizing that she probably doesn't know how extremely annoying that sound is.
He taps her on the shoulder and she jumps. He smirks.
Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you.
Everyone close to Ally has become accustomed to carrying around a pad of paper over the last two months, just in case. Ally may have been fluent in sign language (sixth grade camp) ,but the rest of them could wave hi and that was about the cap of their cognizance.
She smiles in relief. "It's okay."
He's becoming more used to her dialect now. It's hard to be around her sometimes, he must admit, but he imagines how much worse it must be for her to be going through this and the last thing she needed now was to lose something else important to her.
"How am I going to do it, Austin." She questions. "How is this going to work."
How is what going to work? He draws out in his chicken scratch handwriting.
"The music. How am I going to hear the music anymore, Austin?" Her pitch is actually somewhat correct this time, and he wants to be proud but instead he's stunned.
She's right.
She's his songwriter. How can she write the songs if she can't hear the music?
You write the lyrics, I write the music. It'll be a good system.
Tears fall out of the corners of her eyes and she takes out her own notepad.
Isn't that going to be an inconvenience to you?
He smiles. You will never be an inconvenience to me, Ally Dawson.
/
The minute they first became partners, he knew he was in for one hell of a ride aboard the SS Ally. But he also knew he was going to be in it for the long haul, no matter what that entailed.
But it was definitely was a challenge.
The whole being-deaf thing hadn't swayed his views of her all too much, she was still the sweet Ally he'd loved for three years, but Ally's views of herself were obviously changing drastically. Her mood swings were often nowadays.
"Oh my my, oh my stars" He sings. She appears in the doorway.
"Trying to come up with a new tune, huh."
He nods. "Great song." He mouths slowly, and she nods in comprehension. "Thanks."
He continues plunking out chords on the piano until some finally mesh together and he's got about one-eighth of a melody.
"Could you not!" She screams out of the blue, and even she can tell that it's louder than she intended.
He grabs his notepad quickly. What's wrong?
She sighs deeply and runs her hands through her brown curls, trying not to cry.
"You don't understand. You don't understand what it feels like to have the whole world on mute. It's like.. I can see the sounds as they happen, but they just don't remember. And you don't know what it feels like to be a burden on everyone. I mean, I already felt like that in high school, but now it's just like, up to eleven. And it doesn't even seem like you're trying to understand what I'm going through."
It's the most consecutive words he's heard her speak since the night she lost her hearing, and essentially every one she's said stings.
He writes out a long note and hands it over to her.
I'm not TRYING? Of course I'm trying, Ally. I'm doing everything I can to stay as close to you as possible, but you keep pushing me away and I don't know what else to do. And I already told you this countless times, you're not a burden. It's not fucking easy, Ally, for any of us, but we're all doing the best we can, including you. We can make this work, Ally. But I'm not going anywhere.
Her tears spill out and she throws the notepad onto the couch.
"Try harder." She cries, and storms out of the room.
He frowns and plays a minor chord on the piano.
But for the first time, he realizes how lucky he is to hear it.
/
The night after that fallout or disagreement or God knows what it was, he goes home and curls up under his navy blue comforter and tries not to think about the accident and then relives the accident over and over in his head.
It had been Sunday morning and they'd just driven out to Tampa to pick up copies of his new single for Jimmy. They'd laughed and teased each other and stopped for ice cream on the way and he'd fallen in love with her and he was going to tell her as they got closer to home but they hadn't gotten home that day, goddamnit, and it was because of him.
He's building up his courage and paying attention to Ally and not paying attention to the road and he accidentally runs a red light and suddenly there's a blue SUV careening towards them and he heard Ally scream "Austin!" and then there's a crunch of metal and the sounds of shattering glass and then it's a blur.
The next thing he remembers is being with Ally in the ambulance and her face being covered with blood and her nose covered with that plastic ventilator thingy and he remembers crying and screaming "Ally, Ally!" and not knowing if she's going to wake up and he remembers thinking that if she dies, he should too.
And then he remembers the guilt, because he can still feel it.
He wonders what the last thing she heard was. His voice, or the sounds of the crash.
He prays to God that it was his voice.
This car accident- it had made everything different. They both had picked up new phobias afterwards. She slept in until at least noon every Sunday, because she was scared of the mornings. He didn't drive anymore, he was scared of ruining someone else's life, the way he had ruined her life.
People avoided her now, even Trish and Dez had gone up to Boston, where they were going to school, two months early because they didn't know how to deal with it.
She had deferred college for a year, which he knows was never a part of her plans. He'd taken away her music.
This is why, no matter how scared he gets to be around Ally or how hard it is to understand, he stays. He stays not only because she is his best friend, but because it's his fault. So he has to try. He has to try for her.
He takes the covers off his head and blinks blearily at his clock. It's four a.m.
He lets his head hit the pillows again and wipes his face of the tears that he wasn't aware he had shed.
I'm sorry, Ally. He thinks, letting out a sob. I'm so sorry.
/
They don't see each other for most of August, but they think about each other every day.
He checks out every sign language book that the library has and tries to learn as much as he can teach himself.
He practices every day, even recruiting Jimmy, who just so happened to be as fluent as Ally, to help teach him.
"Why are you doing this, Austin? I mean, I know you want to be able to communicate with her better, but I don't think I've ever seen you this driven. And that's saying something, because you're one of the most stubborn and determined kids I've come across in my life."
"She told me to try harder to understand what she's going through." He frowns, looking down at The Illustrated Sign Language Dictionary.
"Look, Austin, I'm going to tell you something, not as your record label exec, but as your friend. I know what it feels like to lose a sense. And yes, it's hard, and yes, it sucks, but life goes on, and eventually, she'll get used to it."
Austin sighs and runs his fingers through his messy blonde locks. "But see, there's a difference. You were never your nose. Ally, she's different. She needs music. She is music, but she can't hear it. And I took that away from her. That's why I'm doing this. I want to try and make up for what she lost."
Jimmy nods curtly, but the boy's reasoning still doesn't make much sense to him. He supposes he's never really been one for human emotions.
Well then, I hope she appreciates this. He signs.
Austin grins. I hope so,too.
/
She's been trying her best to plunk at the piano keys and use their vibrations to make them into a song, but no matter how hard she tries, it doesn't work.
"I want it to make sense!" She yells to the air in the practice room. "I want to go back to the way it was!"
But wishing doesn't make it any better.
She tries to channel the rage into song lyrics but they all come out a mess. She crumples onto the floor and cries, sobbing as loud as she wants because she can't hear it anyways.
She wrote one song (or at least the lyrics) this whole month that would actually be suitable for Austin's next album and it frustrates the hell out of her because she can't write more and she can't write the music. She knows what she wants it to sound like in her head, but she can't write it on the piano and she can't record herself singing it because it'll turn out all off-pitch and terrible.
It feels like she needs a new outlet for all these new feelings, but music and writing had been a part of her for over ten years, and she doesn't think she'd be particularly good at anything else.
Then again, she thinks, she's not particularly good at songwriting anymore, either.
She glances around the room, wondering what she could do. Her eyes fall upon her sketchbooks, which she'd been using for communication and occasional songwritng purposes.
She flips to a clean sheet in the book and brushes her hand across the smooth paper gingerly.
She sighs as she picks up her pencil.
Might as well give it a try.
/
It turns out that she's naturally pretty good. Her father is so ecstatic to see her find a new passion through her hardship that he uncharacteristically supplies ample funds for her supplies: paint, canvas, coloured pencils, whatever. He even offers to get her lessons, but she refuses, explaining that she wants all of her work to come naturally.
She starts out with drawing, but she comes to absolutely adore painting. She's not really one for abstract, she's more of a portrait girl, actually.
And it just so happens that her favorite subject is a certain blonde with messy hair and puppy dog eyes.
She misses him every second she's awake, and even sometimes in her dreams. She knows that this time apart is good for them, but she craves the way their fingers would touch on the piano keys and the way that he always smelled of Old Spice and mints.
It's her fault that they're distant. If she hadn't stormed out that day, he'd probably be here right now.
Try harder, she'd said. But judging from the amount of people who'd been by her side after the accident, he was the only one who'd been trying at all.
The last Saturday of August, he comes bounding into the practice room with a typical boyish smile on his face and he's startled to see an easel in the middle of the room, and even more startled to see Ally sitting at it, too intent on her painting to notice him.
She's turned away from the door and has headphones on for no reason but comfort.
"Ally!" He calls, out of a bad habit .
He walks up to her easel and taps her on the shoulder.
The paintbrush she'd been holding clatters to the floor and her brown eyes light up. Her dad's old shirt that she'd been using as a smock is covered in various paint blobs, some still wet, but she wraps him in a huge hug anyways.
I missed you. He signs the best he can.
I missed you,too. She responds before the realization hits her.
You can sign?
He holds his fingers in a pinching position to signify " a little" and, knowing he wants to say more than he can sign, he pulls out his phone.
I'm learning. I taught myself with books and then Jimmy's been helping me too. I wanted to prove to you that I can try harder, that I'd do anything to make you happy. I'm still not even close to fluent, but I'm trying.
And I'm sorry.
She smiles when she reads it. Can you read what I'm saying now?
I love you. She signs, and he nods jubilantly.
He closes the distance between them and plants his lips on her softly.
It's one gesture they both can understand.
/
He tries. He tries his hardest to understand, to help, and they're both trying their best to heal.
He performs at benefit concerts for deaf research causes and takes more sign language classes and she goes to therapy, which she's pretty sure is doing a lot of nothing, but at least it's an effort.
People tells her that these days, there's a lot of solutions to her hearing loss, there's cochlear implants, et cetera, et cetera, but they all involve complicated procedures and carry heavy risks and unlike Austin with with his throat surgery, she's not willing to take those risks.
She figures she's better off deaf than dead.
And it's a long process to recover. Losing her music, one of the most important things in the world to her, is absolutely terrible, but then without the accident, she never would have discovered her passion for art.
She knows she'll never be completely the same as she was, but it turns out the key to moving on is changing her attitude. When she has Austin around, she knows that she'll always be at least a little bit okay.
And he is always around. His way of trying to understand is to incessantly ask her questions about what it's like to not hear anything.
It gets annoying, but she answers happily anyways because she knows he's doing what he can.
So you can still hear the sounds you already know in your head, right? So like, when you're around something familiar, like let's say, me, and you know what I'm trying to say, can you like, sort of hear it in your head?
"Yes, and no." She answers. She's getting better at controlling her speech, with the help of a therapist, to the point where it almost is back to the way it was before the accident, at least to him. "It's kind of like finding your way through a familiar room in the dark. You understand the basics of it, but there's still some missing pieces and sometimes you bump into things."
He nods in comprehension. "Oh."
"Ally?" He mouths, and yes, she can kind of hear his voice in her head.
"Yeah?"
He brushes a stray piece of hair behind her ear.
I'll always find you in the dark. You know that, right?
She laughs, and he find out just how happy it makes him to hear that sound.
Of course.
/
No matter how hard she tries to keep a postive outlook on this whole situation, she's only human, and sometimes, she relapses.
Today is one of those bad days.
They lay on his couch, the room illuminated only by the flickering television and filled with the sound of her heavy sobs as she lays in his lap.
He lets her scream as loud as she wants and he strokes her hair . Apparently at her checkup, they'd thought she may've gained back some of the hearing in her left ear, which had apparently given her false hopes and a huge disappointment when she still couldn't hear a thing.
He flicks on the lamp on the end table so that she can see him sign.
Squeeze my hand, as hard as you want.
She sniffles and nods and squeezes tightly, to the point that he can start to feel his circulation being cut off. But he squeezes back, gently.
"Ally. I promise you, it's going to get easier." He mouths slowly, making sure she understands it.
She sobs. "But what if it doesn't?"
"Then I'll be here, and you can squeeze tighter. And I won't let go unless you want me to. "
/
He's pretty sure she doesn't know this, but every Sunday morning he walks over to her house and has coffee with her dad and checks up on her to make sure she's okay.
This particular Sunday is February 26th, her nineteenth birthday. Lester and Austin stand in the doorway, making small talk, and her glances around the room. Her walls are covered with perfectly aligned paintings that she'd done, and several photo frames, one of her and him, one of her and her dad, taken in Central Park by her mom when she was about six, and one from their graduation, one of the last times Team Austin had been all together.
"She loves you, you know." Lester comments, taking a sip of his coffee.
His daughter is curled up in her maroon blankets, fast asleep as usual.
"I know." He smiles at her sleeping figure.
"And I love her too. Sometimes I just wish she could hear me say that." He remarks, feeling the guilt tie a knot in his stomach.
Lester pats him on the back and looks up at him with sympathetic eyes. "I know, son. We all do."
/
It's Sunday morning again, but this time, she's awake. Reluctantly, but still awake. Coincidentally, the year anniversary of the accident falls on a Sunday again, and he feels compelled to take her out just to show her how different things can be just in a year.
"Where are we going?" She asks groggily as he holds the car door open for her.
I don't know. he signs. Any requests?
She shakes her head. "You're driving?" She asks suspiciously, cocking an eyebrow.
He nods. Today we're both facing our fears.
There's an air of happiness in the car that almost mirrors the feeling they had a year ago, and he's just as in love with her now.
Except this time he's paying extra attention to the road.
They're headed for University of Miamin the fall, his third album has dropped (lyrics mostly by Ally), and while her hearing hasn't improved at all, one of her paintings had sold yesterday for almost six hundred dollars, which to her was a huge accomplishment.
He has absolutely no idea where they're driving, but it feels good to be behind the wheel.
She's laughing for no reason whatsover, but suddenly the colours in her silent world are amplified and it feels great.
It's a good day.
/
A/N OMG WHAT IS THIS I APOLOGIZE.
This was inspired by a mix of a couple wonderful one-goes-mute/deaf stories here on the archive and my irrational decision to watch like every episode of Switched at Birth like I don't even know.
I have several side notes for this.
A) Ally's hearing loss was traumatic and it happens more often than anyone would like but basically the impact of the crash broke her eardrums, that's why the doctors at some point thought maybe she was healing. I don't know too much of the logistics of this (If you've read a lot of my other works, you'll see I tend to like writing about subjects that a thirteen year old should not be writing about) and I only assumed she'd be able to talk (with the complications of course) because she'd been doing it her whole life.
B) Did y'all like my inclusion of Jimmy? Idk, I like REALLY like him as a character and at some point I want to do a character-centric story about him. I hope I wrote him relatively accurately.
C) If this wasn't obvious, by the end, Austin's relatively fluent in sign language, at least to the point where he can sign all of that.
Okay so this is already impossibly long but love you all and don't be afraid to review ;)
(:Tessa:)