Trying to Find a Reason

Callie, ABC, Etc, own these characters. I just like to borrow them occasionally.

So, I wrote most of this one a while ago, just never finished it. It's just a short one shot I came up with, thinking of some of the characters that we never see interact. It occurred to me that both Maddie and Avery are very close to Juliette, but we have never really seen them in many scenes together at all ... so the idea for this story was born.

Enjoy and let me know what you think. (Also, I am working on the next chapter of If I Only Knew Then ... it's getting there)

He heard the song before he saw the singer. He looked back toward the stage, where he knew Juliette was performing her encore. For the past three weeks, he had watched her perform every song of her show, his heart breaking just a little bit more with every lyric she sang. Like clockwork, he met her on the side of the stage afterwards and they had immediately returned to the bus to work on her album. It had become a routine they could both live with while on tour of outdoor summer festivals across the country.

But the haunting lyrics and vocals drew Avery back around the buses to a spot beside the one emblazoned with Rayna's name written in prominent script. He thought the voice sounded familiar, and as he turned the corner, his guess was proven correct.

Maddie Conrad sat strumming her guitar and singing, occasionally looking down to the notebook beside her.

He wasn't planning to make his presence known, and he was about to turn around and leave her undisturbed, when something caught his eye about fifty feet away. Two teenage boys stood just beyond the low fencing around the backstage area staring at Maddie.

Avery knew these kids were probably harmless, but he had been a teenage boy not too terribly long ago, and knew what might be going through their minds. He also knew that at that age stupidity and hormones could overrule any type of logic. Glancing around, he didn't see any security nearby, and it concerned him. So instead of retreating back to the stage, he walked closer to Rayna's daughter and leaned against the bus directly across from her.

She looked up at him while singing, smiled and continued her song. It was a haunting song of love and loss and he couldn't imagine where she had gotten her inspiration. But it was amazingly well written. Not that he was surprised, with her being Rayna and Deacon's daughter.

As she played the last note, Avery clapped at the performance, while subtly glancing down toward the boys in the shadows, who hadn't moved. "That was great!"

"You really think so, Avery?" Maddie asked with a smile.

Avery smiled back at her. At nearly fifteen, her talent was already undeniable, though she was still very nieve when it came to the brutalities of the business of making music. Avery was sure she would learn in time, unfortunately, but she was driven and passionate about her music and that certainly wouldn't change any time soon. "I do. When did you write that?"

"I started it at the last tour stop," she said as she closed her notebook and looked up to him.

Avery nodded. "It's awesome. You should play it for your mom. She might want to record it."

Maddie hesitated as she sat her guitar beside her. "I ... uh ... was actually thinking of Juliette when I wrote it. She's been writing a lot of sad songs lately."

"Yeah," was all Avery could say. The girl was right. The album was about half done and everything they had laid down for it were songs about loss, heartbreak, mistakes being made. They had each written some on their own or with Deacon and Gunnar. And nothing remotely positive came out of any of it. They had tried writing together, but it was too hard. For both of them.

Silence engulfed them, despite the roar of the crowd nearby as Juliette took her final bow. Finally Maddie stood up and met Avery's eyes. "Can I ask you something?"

"Uh, sure." He crossed his arms and waited for her to continue.

"Why aren't you two back together yet?"

He didn't have an answer. He looked down at his feet and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"I mean, I know you guys have this weird professional relationship while you are producing her album," the teenager pointed out, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "But you're still in love with each other, it's so clear ... why stay broken up?"

He ran his hands through his hair, not really wanting to have this conversation with her. "Maddie, a lot of stuff happened..."

"Yes, I know," Maddie rolled her eyes at him. "Grown up stuff that Juliette won't even tell me about. I get it. I don't need to know the details. But she walks around all quiet when you aren't around and passive when you are. You are clearly doing everything you can to stay busy and distracted. I may be a kid, but even I see how much you guys are hurting. Wouldn't it be easier to just let go of whatever it is and move on."

Silence filled the space between the buses, as she waited expectantly for his reply.

"It's complicated," Avery said feebly.

"So uncomplicate it."

"I wish it were that easy."

"Why isn't it? You're both miserable, and if you keep it up, Juliette's going to have, quite possibly, the most depressing record to come out of Nashville in a very, very long time." Maddie looked down at her feet and Avery could tell she was worried about Juliette. He recognized the expression on her face. It was same one he had worn since the break up. "I've seen the way she looks at you when she thinks no one is watching her. And I know you do the same thing. Why can't y'all just admit that mistakes were made and that you miss each other like crazy. Everyone seems to know that except you and Juliette."

Avery took a deep breath, before he spoke words that he hadn't told anyone. Not Gunnar, not Deacon. But here he was telling Maddie. "Truth is I messed up. I didn't see how much she was hurting. I didn't tell her how I felt about her. If I had ..." he shook his head and looked down to his hands. " ... a lot of stuff that happened, wouldn't have. None of this would have happened."

"You blame yourself?" she asked quietly.

He nodded. "For a lot of it, yeah."

"Does she know that? Because if I know Juliette, and from everything she told me, she's placed all the blame on her own shoulders," Maddie said with an eyebrow raised. "Might be something to think about."

He sighed and stood there in silence, not really knowing how to respond to the teenager. She was right. He was spending so much time focused on his own guilt over what happened, and on avoiding the conversation that he knew he and Juliette eventually had to have, that he hadn't even considered that she felt solely responsible for their breakup. He'd always known that he was partially to blame, even if he hadn't shown it in the fury that pulsed through him in the first hours of his discovery.

"Maddie, come on! Mom's show is about to start!"

Both Maddie and Avery looked over at Daphne as she stood bouncing on her feet beside the front of the bus. The older sister smiled up at Avery and moved to put her guitar back under the bus and joined the younger girl for the trek to the stage. Turning to look behind him, Avery noticed that the boys who had been staring a Maddie were gone. Taking a deep breath, he couldn't help the repetition of Maddie's words in his ears. "Does she know that?"

He knew that they had to talk, had to work through their issues. The truth was that he missed her. He missed writing with her, talking to her, holding her at night ... he missed everything about what they had. And in the long run, her encounter with Jeff wasn't really the issue. It was her past, her tendency self destruction. And he hated himself over the part he played in it. He knew then and there, that despite everything he wanted ... needed ... her back.

As he rounded the corner, he found himself face to face with the tiny blonde woman who still had his heart after months apart. She stood there, tears in her eyes, and he knew immediately that she had heard every word he had said to Maddie.

They stood in silence, their eyes unmoving, until she couldn't take it any longer.

"You," she sniffled, as she wiped a tear away, "... you weren't there for the encore."

"I was getting some ... advice." Avery took a deep breath. "We should talk."

"Yeah. I think we should."