To be perfectly honest I have no idea what this is.

Actually, that's not true. I know exactly what this is. It's a product of staying up way too late and getting a random burst of creativity between the hours of midnight and 3:30 am. But my friend liked it so I decided to post it...hope everyone likes it too :)

"Ally Dawson, you can't be serious!"

Ally winces as Trish continues her lecture-turned-rant about the meaning of friendship and betrayal and about a million other things Ally isn't really paying attention to.

"Are you even listening to me?!"

"Hmm?"

"Did I really have to hear from Dez about when you and Austin slept together?!" she shrieks.

"Which time?" Ally asks without thinking.

"What?!"

"What?" Ally repeats, pretending she didn't say anything.

"It's happened more than once?!"

"No…"

"I can't believe this! And you didn't tell me?!" Trish's volume is increasing significantly and Ally wonders if the only reason that old lady is still shopping around the store is that her hearing aid is broken.

"I forgot."

"How do you just forget-"

Trish is cut off by a certain blonde sauntering into the store with a lazy "Morning, Ally. Hey, Trish."

Both girls whip their heads to the side to look at him, and Austin freezes in his tracks. His eyes shift as he looks between the two, registering Ally's silent cry for help and Trish's death glare.

"Everything okay?" he asks cautiously. He knows he's on thin ice right now, but he has no idea why. And he's determined not to make Trish explode.

"No, everything is not okay! Is there something you'd like to tell me?!" Trish shouts.

"Um…I took a sip of your coffee when you weren't looking the other day?" he tries. Trish narrows her eyes.

"I have to get back to work, can we talk about this later?" Ally asks-begs-her best friend.

"No! How many times has this happened?!" Trish asks.

"Not that many!" Ally whines.

"I'm confused," Austin says, raising his hand.

"How dare you," Trish says, turning on him.

"Alright, I know I should've asked about the coffee thing but I was tired and I figured we're pretty good friends and-"

"I don't give a crap about the stupid coffee!" Trish exclaims.

"Then what's all this about?" Austin asks her.

"Nothing," Ally says. "Please, Trish."

"I think I'll just be going." Austin starts walking out of the store, but Trish grabs his wrist to stop him.

"How could you do that to my best friend?!" Trish exclaims. "You-you just-"

"I just what?" Austin asks, playing dumb and innocent.

"You know what you did."

He looks at Ally questioningly and she sighs and nods. He hangs his head and curses under his breath.

"Okay, twice, a few months ago," Ally says. "And that's it, okay Trish?"

"When exactly?" Trish asks, glaring at Austin and Ally equally.

"Prom night and graduation night. Trish, the past is in the past," Ally says. "Don't you have a job?"

"I'm not letting this go," she says angrily. She lets go of Austin's wrist, nods curtly to her friends, and storms out of the store.

Austin exhales deeply and leans against the counter, raising his head to look at Ally. She's already looking at him.

"Dez told her."

"You think I told him? Dude, he saw right through me the second he saw me."

"Why am I having trouble believing that?"

"I don't know, because it's the truth."

"Well, no matter how Dez found out, he told Trish and now she's mad at us and we agreed to never talk about it because we were drunk and stupid but now everything is coming back to bite us and we're gonna have to face the facts and accept what happened but I'm scared and I don't know what to do and-"

"Calm down," Austin tells her, placing his hands on her shoulders and looking into her eyes. "We made a mistake. Or two. We didn't tell Trish. She's mad. She'll get over it."

"I'm supposed to be innocent!"

"Well, that's not working out too well."

"We aren't even dating!"

"But clearly we're very attracted to each other."

"Austin!"

"You said to accept the facts! I'm accepting the facts!"

"I didn't mean-" she starts, but then she stops. If she's being honest, she doesn't know what she means. She'd be lying if she said she didn't want to pin Austin against a wall and disregard her self-proclaimed innocence on a nearly daily basis.

"Well, what did you mean?!" Austin asks, shaking her out of her fantasies. "Because I know the basics. Whenever we're drunk together, we do it." He shrugs.

It's so blunt it could be comical. If she wasn't so terrified she'd break out in laughter and probably wouldn't stop until New Years. He's so casual about it, as if this won't affect their friendship forever.

"That's not basic! That is complicated and scary and weird and wrong and-"

"And a cold, hard fact!" Austin interrupts her. "We are clearly attracted to each other, at least physically if not anything else. Why keep beating around the bush about it? Listen, Ally. We're both eighteen. That means we have to grow up and be mature adults."

"Look who's talking."

"Ally."

"What?"

"You're avoiding the subject."

"I'm not avoiding the subject."

"You're avoiding the subject because you're scared. You don't want to be attracted to me but you are and it isn't just when you're wasted."

She doesn't say anything, confirming his suspicions.

"You're terrified. But Ally, think about it. Hasn't it been like this for a while? We dated what, two years ago? We've had something between us ever since then, but take it too far two nights and suddenly it's scaring you?"

"Yes!"

"Why?"

"Because I'm innocent!"

He blinks.

"You. Innocent. I don't remember what we did, but I'm fairly certain the hickeys would say otherwise."

"Stop that!"

"Stop what?"

"Stop talking about it like it was some normal thing!" she shouts, smacking his arm with each word.

"We're teenagers in love. It is a normal thing."

"What?!" she squeaks.

"What?" he asks, looking genuinely confused.

"You just used the 'L' word," she says, practically choking on her own heartbeat. (She's aware of how ridiculous and impossible that is, but she's too busy losing her cool to care about the plausibility of her exaggerations.)

"Hmm?"

"You just said we're in love."

"Oh, that 'L' word. Well, duh."

"I never said I loved you!"

"You didn't have to."

She stares at him in frustration and confusion, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. She has no idea what to say to that. What can she say to that?

"What's that supposed to mean?" she finally asks.

"Ally, we literally 'made love.' It's kind of unspoken, isn't it?"

"Austin, we were drunk! We didn't know what we were doing! How can you possibly categorize that as love?!"

He blinks.

"Because I love you."

Now. Now is when she actually chokes on her heartbeat. It pounds so hard against her chest she's almost certain it's leapt out of her body completely and run away from her because she's struggling to breathe right now.

"What?" she manages.

"I love you," he repeats. "I've been in love with you for a while now. I thought it was obvious."

It's then that she subconsciously makes the decision to realize how much the blonde has grown over the years. She can remember when he first wrote Steal Your Heart, and he couldn't even say it was about her. He stuttered when she asked if he still had feelings for her, and he refused to talk about their past relationship for fear of awkwardness.

But now…now, he's standing right in front of her, looking her dead in the eyes, and telling her simply that he's in love with her. And now she's the scared one.

"It wasn't obvious?" he asks, snapping her out of her thoughts once again.

"No!"

"Oh. Well, I love you." He pauses and tilts his head, scanning her face. "Do you love me?"

"Austin, you can't just ask me that."

"Why not?" he asks without missing a beat. "I mean, it's a pretty simple question. Yes or no. Do you love me?"

"I-I don't-"

"You can't not know, Ally. If you don't know, that means you probably aren't." He shrugs. "Which means that our one-night stands are just that."

"That defeats the purpose of a one-night stand. It shouldn't be plural."

"Whatever," he says. "Either way, clearly on your side it wasn't out of love, just some drunken attraction that you don't feel any deeper than physically. And that's fine."

"That's not fine!"

"Well, what do you wanna do about it, Ally? I hate seeing you so freaked out and I hate it when you worry so much about things you can't change and I hate that this is upsetting you so much because there's nothing I can do to fix it and even though I don't remember what happened I don't regret a thing because I am totally in love with you and I just want you to stop being so afraid of me!" he exclaims, finally losing his cool. She winces at his loud tone and doesn't miss the fact that during his little speech he got so close to her she can feel his warm breaths on her face.

He smells like mint and vanilla and Austin and she's so intoxicated by his scent it takes a minute before what he said sinks in.

"You think I'm afraid of you?" she asks quietly.

"I think you're afraid of wanting me. I think you're afraid of me wanting you. I think you're afraid that everything will come back and bite us."

"I'm not afraid. Especially not of you."

"I don't believe you."

They stare at each other, his eyes boring into hers as if he can see straight into her soul. She tries to shrink and he leans closer to her.

"You know I hate doing things like this to you. I hate putting pressure on you but the only way for you to stop being afraid is to accept the facts and face your fears. What are your feelings for me?"

"Austin I can't-"

"You can." His gaze becomes softer and he leans away a bit. "Just tell me how I make you feel. It's not hard."

"It is."

"It's not. Here, I'll go first. You are the most incredible girl I've ever met. Since the day I met you, I knew there was something special about you. I am completely in love with you and all I want is for you to be happy." He takes one of her hands gently and brings it to his chest, where she can feel his heart pounding faster than her own. "My heart pounds just looking at you, I get butterflies from hearing your voice, and one look at those big brown eyes and all my sense goes out the door. All I care about is you, Ally. And as scary as that is, I know that as long as I'm with you, everything will turn out okay."

She stares at him for a while, shocked at how easily and confidently he just poured out his heart to her, having no idea how she's feeling. She swallows, thinking about what she wants to say.

"What are your feelings for me?" he asks again, his voice gentle and his hand still holding hers on his pounding heart. She takes a deep breath.

"Sometimes I wanna hug you and watch movies and eat pancakes and be normal, and other times I want to kiss you so hard you forget that it's me who's kissing you."

He chuckles a bit, his voice low.

"Anything else?" he asks.

This time, sheisn't sure what to say. So she kisses him instead.

She feels his eyelashes brush her cheekbones as his eyes flutter closed and she hears him sigh in contentment as he kisses her back. He brings his hands up to cup her face and though she tries to deepen the kiss, he keeps it slow and gentle, never keeping their lips attached for more than a few seconds before pulling away slightly and reconnecting their lips once again. It's like a dance, really. Except this is a dance she doesn't suck at.

"I love you," he whispers against her lips in the gaps between their kisses.

"You're beautiful, Ally. So beautiful." His lips brush against hers and she shivers, trying to stop him from pulling away so much. She doesn't need to hear what he has to say.

"I'm so lucky to have you."

She grips the collar of his shirt desperately, but he's intent on keeping it slow. He takes her hands gently and intertwines their fingers.

"You're all I've ever wanted."

The whispered comments continue, and she decided to finally listen to him because it doesn't seem like he's going to let this go anywhere.

"You're perfect, Ally."

"I am so in love with you."

"Don't ever leave me. Please don't ever leave me."

"I love you more than you understand, Ally."

He lets go of her hands to entangle his fingers in her hair, still kissing her and pulling away, and kissing her and pulling away, and kissing her and pulling away.

"You're my everything."

She shivers again and he presses his lips to hers one last time before pulling away completely, leaving her breathless and blushing with a pounding heart and a feeling of nothing but love and being loved coursing through her veins.

She opens her eyes and sees that he's already looking at her with pure, raw, total and complete adoration in his honey-colored eyes. She can see him drinking her in. She feels as though she can see right into his mind, and instead of seeing lust (which she must admit she kind of expected), all she sees is love and an almost fascination, as if he's completely mesmerized by her. It's as if he's in complete disbelief that she's here, standing in front of him, living and breathing and real. She doesn't understand it, but from the look in his eyes, he understands it completely. And that's enough for her.

"I love you," she says quietly. But he knows she means every word. His face brightens and his eyes light up and she smiles a bit because she knows things are gonna be okay.

"I love you, too," he responds. "More than anything, more than everything."

She knows he means every word, too.

"Are we gonna be okay?" she asks, looking up at him. "Nothing is gonna come back and bite us?" He smiles a bit and shakes his head.

"Nothing is gonna come back and bite us. I love you and you love me and we're gonna be okay, Ally."

She still sees nothing but love in his eyes, and she knows that all he truly wants, all he truly needs really, is for her to be happy. He presses a gentle kiss to her cheek and smiles down at her, eyes twinkling.

"Are we ready to try this again?" she asks. "Are we rushing? Are we gonna end up heartbroken again?"

"I told you, Ally," he says gently. "As long as we're together, everything will turn out okay."

This time, she believes him.

Roses are red, emeralds are green,

I don't own Austin and Ally, and my sister is mean.

I don't know what I'm doing, and this disclaimer is bad

I'm not good at poetry, and this is getting sad.

So I guess I'll be going; I have to finish work for school.

But thank you for reading, and reviews would be cool. ;)

~Maddie :)