Summary: A few years later, Austin and Ally finally come full circle. Ally-centric. Auslly.
Disclaimer: Austin and Ally is not mine.
Warnings: AU in the sense that the story ignores the season two Auslly arc and Ally's not quite completely over her stage fright yet.
A/N: This is going to be a looong one.
Ally stands very still backstage, eyes closed, silently willing herself not to hyperventilate or throw up or faint. She tries to distract herself by thinking about something, anything else than what she's about to do in less than five minutes but finds herself oddly fixated on one distinct memory.
Sonic Boom, when they were fifteen. Sometimes she can't believe it's been more than eight years since the day that Austin Moon had crashed his way into her neat, ordered life, with two corndogs, the accidental theft of her song, and the inadvertent destruction of a talk show television set.
Her eyes are still squeezed shut, and she is taking slow, deliberate breaths, but there's a small smile on her face as she thinks about those days.
She hears the song ending and takes another deep breath, feeling her stomach twist painfully. She forces herself to open her eyes and sees Austin on stage, holding a guitar and talking to the sold-out theater.
"And now, we're going to change it up a little. I'm going to be singing a song with my long time songwriter, partner, and best friend, Ally Dawson. It's probably a little different than what you're all used to from me, but I think you're going to like it. Give it up for Ally!"
Austin grins and throws his arm out to the side of the stage where's she's standing and turns his head to look at her.
She feels the blood drain from her face and she knows, knows that she's not going to be able to move.
His smile falters and she sees his eyes widen for a second as she just stands there, frozen, but then he turns back to the crowd and grabs the microphone.
"Um, I think we're having some technical difficulties. Hang on minute while I go see what's up." He waves at the audience as he starts to jog off the stage and points to the back of the theater. "House music, please!"
A booming bass track starts playing as Austin approaches, his guitar slung over his back, and she feels the floor underneath her feet start to vibrate.
He comes to a stop in front of her.
"Ally. Ally, what's wrong?" he asks, his voice concerned. "Come on, they're going to love it, and they're going to love you. It's the last show of the tour, and if anything goes wrong…" he pauses, seeing the panicked look on her face. "Which it won't—don't make that face—you won't have to worry about it ever again."
She finally lifts her head to look at him when he hesitantly puts a hand on her shoulder. She takes another deep breath and fights the very strong urge to chew on her hair.
"I can't do this, Austin," she says. "I'm terrified. I'm going to mess up, and then it'll ruin the concert, and then it'll ruin your entire career, and then you'll hate me, and then I'll be all alone because Trish and Dez will hate me too because it'll ruin their careers, and I'll end up living with twenty cats, and I'll constantly be sneezing because I'm allergic to cats and—"
She trails off as she sees his raised eyebrows and she lets out a nervous laugh. He steps back and runs a hand through his hair, sighing.
She looks at her feet. "Austin, I want to go out there, more than you know—"
"Then just go," he interrupts. "It's that simple. You can do this."
She opens her mouth to say something but finds herself unable to say anything. She can hear the crowd starting to get a bit restless but he seems completely unaffected. He's just standing there, looking at her.
She exhales loudly. And inhales. And exhales again. "All right," she hears herself say. "All right."
He beams at her and she feels tense, her heart pounding out of her chest, but under that, there's a slowly emerging sense of determination. Apparently, this just makes her look more nervous, because he tries to reassure her again. "Come on. Just focus on me, pretend we're in our practice room, at the piano—"
"No." She lifts her chin up and stands up straighter. "I need to do this knowing there's an audience. This is what I want," she says firmly.
She doesn't think Austin's smile can get any bigger, but then it does, and he grabs her hand and starts pulling her toward the stage.
She focuses on the feel of his hand completely enveloping hers, before being completely blinded by the stage lights. She stumbles a little and he tightens his grip on her, steadying her before anything can happen.
He lets her go when they get to the piano and adjusts his guitar strap while she takes her seat at the bench. He puts the microphone back on the stand and smiles at the audience that's cheering wildly.
"Ally Dawson, everyone!" He grins again and his eyes are locked on hers across the piano.
She gives him a small smile, takes a breath, and begins to play.
Once she starts, she tunes everything out. The audience, the nervousness, the feeling in her stomach, the lights, the stage. She focuses on the music, the piano, her voice, his voice, how her voice fits with his voice, and before she knows it, the song is over and she blinks down at her hands.
There is a millisecond of silence that she swears lasts five minutes, and then the audience erupts in thunderous applause and before she can do anything, think anything, Austin is at her side, smiling, his hand under her elbow, gently nudging her to stand. She allows him to pull her up and he wraps his arm around her shoulders.
It is then, when they are standing under the bright lights, a thousand people on their feet for him, no, she realizes, for him and her, Austin's palm warm and solid on her shoulder, that she starts to smile. It turns into a grin and her eyes catch Austin's, and then all at once, they're laughing and she wonders why it had taken her so long to do this because it feels so right.
He moves his arm from around her and takes her hand, pulling her to the front of the stage so she can get a better look at the audience and, she supposes, so they can get a better look at her, Austin Moon's mysterious songwriter who had finally come out of the shadows. The cheering gets even louder, and then they bow, hands clasped tightly together.
She feels giddy as they bow again and she can't stop another laugh from escaping. Austin hears her, and grins as he starts to walk off the stage, waving to the audience. "Goodnight, Miami! See you again soon!"
They're backstage now, and she feels like her heart is about to explode and her face is beginning to hurt from smiling so widely. She turns to see that he's looking at her with an expression she can't place, his eyes thoughtful.
She smiles at him. "What'd you think?"
Apparently, that's what he had been waiting for, because before she can even blink, his arms are around her and her feet are off the ground.
She squeals in surprise as he spins her around, around, and breathes a laugh as he sets her down.
"You were amazing. We were awesome. It was so, so good," he says. "You…Ally, it was beautiful. You were…" He hesitates. "The song was beautiful."
She looks up at him, blushing, because she hears something in his voice that makes her think he might not actually be talking about the song. His gaze is steady, his eyes dark and serious, and he's looking at her in a way that she's never seen before and she suddenly feels dizzy and a little overwhelmed. She feels nervous again, all of a sudden, but she thinks it might have nothing to do with stage fright and everything to do with the blond haired boy standing in front of her.
Ally becomes awkward when she's nervous, so she tears her eyes away from his, backs away, and laughs a little too loudly. "Thanks, Austin. Guess ol' Ally D came through for the big number after all!" She makes a strange movement with her arms and he finally laughs, diffusing the strange and unfamiliar tension.
She feels oddly disappointed, but before she can analyze the moment further, they're interrupted with the arrival of Trish and Dez, who are practically running toward them in excitement.
She suddenly finds herself at the center of a crushing group embrace and she staggers backward, laughing, from the force of it.
That night, Ally can't sleep. Miami is the last stop of Austin's tour and now she's back in her old room, staring at the painted clouds on her ceiling, unable to relax. Something in her has shifted, and feels like nothing will ever be the same again and she's not quite sure if that's a good or bad thing yet. For the past eight years, it had been Austin Moon in the limelight, while she had kept a low profile, preferring to be his rarely seen partner and songwriter.
Tonight, though, even though they had only performed one song, it had been Austin Moon and Ally Dawson, and she realizes that she likes the sound and feel of that more than she thought she would. For the first time, she thinks, she is not looking forward to his future, but the potential of theirs. They've both changed a lot since they started out, she realizes, but it might finally be time that they make a change together.
She's more confident and stands up for herself more than she used to, but she's still dorky and nerdy and a little bit awkward, and the easiness with which she trusts other people still gets her into trouble from time to time. She still finds happiness in books and writing and cloudwatching and calculators but she's a little more comfortable venturing outside of her shell.
Their performance earlier isn't the first time she's performed on stage since her MUNY catastrophe but it has been the biggest crowd yet. Something about that particular moment, something she can't quite put words to, has stirred something deep within her, and made her ready to finally, fully pursue her dream.
Surprisingly (or not), fame and success hadn't really changed Austin. Much. There had been a three-month long period about two years ago, during a volatile relationship with a famous actress, when she wondered whether the Austin Moon she knew would ever come back. His personality changed while he had been with her (Ally refuses to even think her name). Confidence became cockiness and priorities shifted from music and friends to money and status, to the point that he was barely recognizable to her, a dark time that she hates thinking about.
Something though, something that he hasn't ever talked about, finally snapped him out of it, and he knocked on her door late one night, presumably after breaking things off with her, holding out a jar of pickles and a book on clouds that she had no idea he even knew she wanted. She stepped aside so he could come in and then screamed at him for seventeen minutes straight until she sank to the floor in exhaustion.
"I'm sorry, Ally," he said, dropping to the floor in front of her, his voice quiet. "I'm so, so sorry." She stared at him for a minute, searching his eyes, before finally holding her arms out, and he had collapsed into her, burying his face in her neck. "If you ever do that again, you can't come back," she said quietly. "I know," he said, his arms tight around her. "I know."
But now, he's mostly back to being easy-going, although she's had to pull his head down from the clouds a few times. His weaknesses are back to being pancakes and stuffed animals, though he's grown up in important ways. He's not as immature as he was, although she starts to question that when he and Dez are left alone for extended periods of time. He usually thinks more before he acts now, but he's still a lot more spontaneous than she is, something that she's glad for, because it's usually him that's dragging her to experience new things.
Her mind is racing, thinking about their past, her past, and after she tosses and turns for a while, she gives up on sleep. She gets up, puts on an old pair of jeans and a shirt that might have belonged to Austin at some point and grabs her dad's car keys and her cell phone.
She leaves a note for her dad and heads to the practice room at Sonic Boom. The space hadn't changed, even in the years she had been immersed in Austin's music career and college in Los Angeles.
She heads straight for the piano without bothering to turn on the lights; the moon is full tonight and silvery light is filtering in through the windows. She starts playing, a classical piece that she had memorized when she was much younger. She closes her eyes for a moment, imagining herself on stage earlier that night. She jolts upright as she hears a sound and turns around to see Austin leaning in the doorway. "Sorry, Ally, I didn't mean to scare you," he says.
She waves away his apology. "Can't sleep either?" she asks, swiveling around on the bench to face him.
He nods. "Yeah. I couldn't think of anywhere else to go." He pauses. "Why are you sitting here in the dark?"
She shrugs. "You can turn on the lights if you want."
"Nah, it's okay." He walks closer toward her and gestures to the piano. "What are you playing? A new song? I only heard a few seconds."
She shakes her head and turns back to the piano. "No, nothing like that. It's a piece I played in a recital when I was maybe…" She scrunches her nose in concentration. "Eleven or twelve?"
She feels him behind her before he sits down, bumping his shoulder into hers. "You would still remember it perfectly, even after ten years. Want to hear the first song I ever learned?"
She sits up excitedly. "Of course!"
He flexes his fingers and places his hands on the keys. "Prepare to be amazed," he says dramatically. She rolls her eyes and sits back.
His fingers move lightly over the keys, and she recognizes the simple melody instantly. She joins him halfway through the song, an octave higher, their hands occasionally touching, and he turns his head to raise an eyebrow at her intrusion.
She shrugs and they finish it together. She grins. "That was actually my first song, too, believe it or not."
He laughs and stands up, holding his hand out to her. She takes it, allowing him to pull her to her feet before letting go. He looks at her, seeing her standing for the first time, and frowns. "Hey, is that my shirt?"
She smiles sheepishly and avoids his eyes. "Um…no?"
"Ha!" He points at her. "I knew you had that shirt! You let me search for it for weeks on the bus! When you had it the entire time?"
She blushes. "Yeah, well, I like it. And you left it on my bunk. Even though I'd told you a million times not to leave your stuff lying around. Because you're a slob. So I took it. As retribution." She sniffs and swats his hand away. "For your messiness."
His jaw drops and he points to himself. "My messiness? And this is coming from the girl who somehow got toothpaste all over the toilet?"
She narrows her eyes at him and puts her hands on her hips. "How many times do I have to explain myself? I tripped! That can't really surprise you that much anymore."
He scoffs at her but she knows he's not serious. "Fine. But admit you're messy, too."
He cocks his head and eyes her shirt. "And I guess you can keep it."
"Hmm. I think we both know I don't need your permission." She turns her nose up at him indignantly. "And, no, I'm not admitting to anything."
He sighs in fake exasperation, shaking his head, and walks over to sit on the couch. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You're the boss." He pats the cushion next to him, inviting her to join him.
She laughs at the face he makes and walks over to plop down heavily next to him, yawning as she leans against him slightly.
"I think I'm getting sleepy now."
He leans back into the cushions. "Me too."
She feels her eyelids getting heavier, and presses further into him. "We should probably go home."
"Probably," he agrees, his voice quiet, but makes no effort to get up.
His arm goes around her shoulders, pulling her closer instead, and she leans her head on his chest, because she's sleepy, and he's warm, and they're both exhausted. There's a voice inside her head telling her that this might be crossing the boundaries of what best friends are supposed to do, but she ignores it, imagining the look in his eyes after the performance. Their relationship is slowly changing; she can feel it, but then again, they've been changing each other since the day they met.
She feels his fingers press lightly on her arm before going slack, and she realizes he has already fallen asleep. This is a talent of his, one that she has always envied, because she has always been very particular about where and when she can sleep. She tilts her head back slightly and studies his face.
His light hair is still a mess, but his face is calm and his lips are slightly parted. She can make out dark, full eyelashes in the moonlight, and follows the lines of his face down his nose, to his chin and back up to his closed eyes. His chest is rising and falling evenly below her and she curls into him, finally closing her eyes, allowing his warmth and the rhythm of his quiet breathing to lull her into sleep.
Thank you so much for reading! Reviews would be awesome!