Disclaimer: I do not own Austin and Ally. If I did, it wouldn't be ending today… or ever. I'm not crying, I just have something in my eye. (Dez, in the distance: "Yeah, tears.")
WARNING: Contains depression.
This is sad. As in majorly so. And crappy. Sorry.
Make It through Whatever
Austin groaned as the weight of the bed shifted for what felt like the millionth time in the past five or so hours. All night he had been hearing Ally get out of bed and scurry to the bathroom. "Alls, is everything alright?" he murmured to his wife when she got back.
"Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. I think I just drank too much at dinner, I've been feeling slightly bloated all night," she answered, pressing a swift kiss to his lips before settling down again.
He began to wrap an arm around her, but thought better of it, and soon enough she got out of bed again.
Austin sighed. This was going to be a long night.
The next evening, he found Ally napping on the couch when he got home. He wasn't really surprised, considering the fact that she had been up all night going to the bathroom. He felt slightly guilty for waking her up, but his stomach was rumbling rather loudly.
"Austin?" she mumbled when he gently shook her awake. "What time is it?"
"About seven p.m., how long have you been sleeping?"
Ally's eyes widened. "Three hours, apparently."
"I told you you overwork yourself to much," his tone was semi-teasing, semi-serious. "Do you want me to make dinner?"
Ally shook her head. "Why don't we order in? I'd rather not burn alive tonight."
"Hey, my cooking skills really aren't that bad, you know," Austin replied in mock offense, but he was already heading towards the fridge, onto which they had stuck the takeout menus.
"Austin, and I'm saying this as your loving wife, your cooking skills are truly abysmal."
"Fine, Miss Smarty-Pants. What do you want? Burgers? Italian? Chinese?" he asked, raking his eyes over the different menus.
"I'm really in the mood for Thai, to be honest," Ally called out from the living room.
Austin wrinkled his brow. "I thought you hated Thai."
"I had a change of heart." he turned around to see that Ally had come to stand in the kitchen entry, her cheeks slightly red.
"Well then, Thai it is."
When the food arrived, Austin laid it out on the table before calling Ally, whom he had sent to bed to rest.
Ally entered the dining room, got one whiff of the food, and rushed back out. A few moments later, faint retching sounds were heard from the bathroom.
Austin went over to her and held her hair back, rubbing her back soothingly.
When Ally finished emptying her stomach of its contents, she sent him a shaky smile. "Guess I still don't like Thai after all."
Austin returned her smile with one of his own, though it wasn't wholeheartedly. He was worried that Ally was coming down with something, and he was leaving in three days for a four months tour. "Why don't you brush your teeth, and I'll make you some toast?" he offered.
"That'll be great, thanks," Ally shot him a grateful look.
After dinner, Austin picked up his phone and called Trish. "Hello? Austin? Is everything alright?" was the first thing she asked him when she picked up. He rarely called her at these hours.
"Actually, I think Ally's coming down with something, and I wanted to ask you to drop by while I'm on tour to make sure she's okay."
"Yeah, of course. What's wrong with her?"
"She's been going a lot to the bathroom recently, she exhausted, more so than usual, and she threw up just before dinner."
An odd tone came to Trish's voice, somehow both suspicious and excited. "Austin, could you do me a favor and put Ally on the phone? I really need to talk to her."
"Yeah, sure, and thanks Trish," he passed the phone to Ally. "Hey Trish," she greeted her best friend. "Yeah, but it's not a big deal… uh-huh… Trish! I'm not gonna… fine, yes, a bit… what's with all the questions?… You think what?!… Impossible…" Ally's cheeks were growing red, and her eyes flicked to Austin for a moment. "Oh, my god, that is in no way any of your business… okay, so yeah, technically it's possible, but… fine, yes, thank you. I'll talk to you later. Okay, thanks, bye."
There was a weird sort of smile on Ally's face once she finally hung up the phone, partly disbelieving, partly euphoric. She handed Austin his phone back and then starred ahead, her mind obviously a million miles away.
"Ally," he nudged her lightly, and her gaze snapped to his, "what did Trish want?
Ally began twirling her hair subconsciously. "Uh… nothing really, just girl stuff. I'm still pretty tired, I think I'll go to bed."
Austin could tell she was lying, but figured that if it was something truly important, Ally would tell him. He kissed her forehead softly and bade her a good night.
Two days later, Austin returned home early to start packing for his tour. Immediately when he entered he felt himself tackled into a hug.
"Hey, what are you doing home? I thought you had to work until late today," he asked his wife. "Wait, Ally, you're shaking. What's wrong?"
"Austin…" she pulled away, and he saw unshed tears in her eyes, though she was smiling, "I- we're- I'm-" she cut herself off a few times, seemingly unsure of what to say to him.
He pulled her to the couch and they sat down. Ally took a deep breath, as if to focus her thoughts, and looked into his eyes. "Austin, I'm pregnant."
The words echoed in his head. "Ally, I can't believe this! This is… this is amazing!" he breathed out. The idea that Ally was pregnant with his child, with their child, and that he was going to be a father in less than a year was surreal to him. "Wha- how?"
"Austin, that is a talk your parents should have had with you a long time ago, and if they hadn't, I am not going to be the one to do so. And anyways, you were kind of there, so…" Ally trailed off, smirking at him.
"Are pregnant women supposed to be this sarcastic?" he quipped back. "What I meant was how did you find out?"
"Trish figured it out when you called her about my supposed 'illness'," she air-quoted the word, "and since she had some of the same symptoms when she was pregnant with Isabelle, she bought me a pregnancy test this morning. I used it, and it appears to be positive. I'll have to schedule a doctor's appointment soon."
Suddenly realization struck him. "I'll have to cancel my tour," Austin muttered, hunting for his phone to call Jimmy.
Ally's eyes widened. "Austin, no."
He looked at her, aghast. "What? Why? Ally, I want to be here for you, I need to be here for you, and it'll be kind of hard to be here for you if I'm on the other side of the country!"
"Austin, you can't disappoint your fans. And if you cancel the tour for no apparent reason, everyone will know something's up. Do you really want our baby to be in the spotlight before he or she is even born?" Ally asked him and he sighed and averted his eyes, knowing she was right. She cupped his cheek, making him look at her. "Look, I don't like this anymore than you do, but we'll text and Skype all the time. You'll be having fun on your tour and I'll work to have my album released earlier, so by the time this little bugger," she pointed at her flat stomach, "will be ready to come out I'll be well rested. And Trish will be here to take care of me. Oh! If you want I can even send you a progress picture every day so it'll be like you're really here."
Austin sighed again. "God, I hate it when you're right."
Ally pulled him in for a quick kiss. "I know."
Ally was woken up by the sound of the bed springs creaking. Passing it off as a dream or just plain old wishful thinking -she really missed Austin- she tightened the blankets around her and tried to fall back asleep.
That is, until she felt an arm wrap around her from behind.
With a scream, she kicked at the invader, who fell out of the bed with a string of curses. She scrambled to turn on her bedside lamp and saw a mop of blond hair -connected to an absolute moron- on the floor.
"Austin? What are you doing here?" she wasn't sure if she was happy that he was here or mad that he scared her.
"The venue I was supposed to perform in tonight was flooded, and since it was all last minute, there aren't any venues to replace it. Since the concert tonight was cancelled and tomorrow I don't have one, I thought to myself, 'gee, why don't I go visit my lovely wife, whom I hadn't seen in a whole month?' So, for the past twenty hours I've been hitchhiking from Atlanta, and, when I finally get home, the first thing my wife does is kick me out of the bed," Austin finished his explanation with a glare and rubbed his head.
"Because when my husband is supposed to be in flippin' Georgia and someone just gets into my bed, I should cuddle up to them, since there is absolutely no way that it's some creepy fan."
Austin's glare turned into a petulant pout. "When you put it that way…" he grumbled and crossed his arms.
Ally rolled her eyes at her husband's childish behavior. "If you want to come back into bed, I promise I won't kick you out again."
"I don't know, I'm kind of getting comfortable here," Austin lay down on the floor, hands folded behind his head.
"Your loss," Ally muttered. She rolled back over to turn of the light, but before she could, Austin jumped up from the floor and got into the bed. "Fine, I'll sleep on the bed. Stop begging me, Woman."
She decided not to answer; otherwise they would spend the whole night bantering back and forth. Instead she just turned off the light and curled up at Austin's side, her head on his chest. One of his arms wrapped automatically around her, and the other rubbed her stomach. At nine weeks, a small bump was just beginning to appear, one that would be invisible to anyone who didn't know it was there. "So how's the little one treating you?"
"Awful. I'm in the bathroom all day, either peeing or puking, I get tired at, like, four in the afternoon, my head hurts and I have so many mood swings I literally made Ronnie's assistant cry the other day. But, they say the first trimester is the hardest, so as soon as this month is over things should start to look up."
"I wish I didn't have to go back tomorrow," Austin sighed.
Ally raised her head up to look at him. "Austin, what's wrong? You love touring, remember? You love singing your heart out on stage, and going to new places and meeting your fans."
"Yeah, but I love you more. And I don't want to miss out on half you pregnancy, it's something we're supposed to go through together."
"You aren't missing much, just a lot of me vomiting and crying, you'll get back just in time for us to find out the baby's gender. And I have a few days off in three weeks, so I can come and visit you." she stretched her neck to kiss him lightly on the lips before settling down again.
"It's not the same, though," he muttered.
"No, it isn't," she agreed with him.
He got worried when she didn't come in three weeks like she promised, and even more so when she didn't answer her phone. When he called Trish she just told him that Ally was okay, but her tone made him think she was hiding something.
Finally, after about a week of missed phone calls and unanswered text messages, Ally called him.
"Au-Austin?" her voice broke.
"Ally, I've been worried sick. What's wrong? Are you crying?" he asked her, not sure if he's happy she finally phoned or terrified of the reason she did so.
"I just- I need you to come home. Please," she replied, ignoring his questions.
"Why? Ally, what's going on? Please talk to me," Austin all but begged.
"I'll t-tell you when you get h-h-home," Ally whispered and hung up.
He was frozen for a few moments, trying to process what had happened in the past few minutes. Then he dialed Trish.
"Trish, what's wrong with Ally?" he asked as soon as she answered.
"Austin… that's something Ally should tell you face to face, not something I should tell you on the phone. Look, I'll talk to Jimmy about canceling the rest of your tour and get you a plane ticket."
"But why do I need to cancel my tour? Trish?" instead of an answer, he heard the beep-beep-beeping of a disconnected call. Great.
When he entered their apartment the next day, weary after a long and uncomfortable flight, he found Trish sitting on the couch, comforting a sobbing Ally.
"A-Ally?" his voice cracked. He was scared, so, so scared, because he had never seen Ally so upset. Not when they broke up, not when he left for his first tour and she stayed behind, not when she didn't get into Harvard, never.
"I'll leave you two alone," Trish said, making a hasty exit.
"Ally, please tell me what happened," he begged as he went to sit next to her. "What can I do to make it better?"
Ally just shook her head and crawled onto his lap, burying her face in his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and let her tears soak his shirt until she spoke.
"Austin, I… th-the baby… I l-lost the b-" she couldn't finish her sentence, but she didn't have to. He felt a crippling, paralyzing grief come over him as he processed her words. His child, his son or daughter, was gone, before he even had a chance to know them.
His heart hurt when he remembered that the last time he sat like this with Ally on the couch, holding her tightly, was when she had told him she was pregnant, nearly two months ago. He felt tears in his eyes and he tightened his arms around Ally, tucking her head under his chin.
A few days later, he couldn't ignore the constant phone calls from his parents, her parents and Dez, probably wondering why he cancelled his tour and why neither he nor Ally were answering their phones.
He texted Trish, apparently the only one that knew, and asked her to come watch over Ally. He was too scared to leave her alone.
"Austin, honey, we were so worried!" his mother exclaimed when she opened the door and saw him standing on the threshold. "You leave your tour for no reason, you and don't answer the phone, Lester and Penny are just as confused as we are…" she trailed off.
"I'm sorry mom, I'll explain everything. Can we do this inside, though?"
"Yes, of course," she moved aside and let him enter.
He went to the living room and sat down on the couch, comforted slightly to be in his childhood home. His mother joined him after a few moments, setting a glass of water on the coffee table before him.
"So?" she coaxed him gently after a few moments.
"We lost the baby."
The words hung in the air. Now that he said it out loud, everything felt so much more real to him.
"Oh, honey," his mother hugged him. In her arms he felt like a little boy again, when the worst thing that ever happened to him was his Electric Avengerrr action figure losing its head.
They sat there for a long while, until Austin's phone beeped with a message from Trish; Get back here, fast. She had also sent a link.
Austin clicked the link, which turned out to be to a magazine article. "Fuck," he muttered when he read the title.
Baby Moon on the Way?
Austin Moon canceled his tour halfway through a few days ago, and we can't help but wonder why. The fact that Ramone Records also decided to release Ally Dawson's album two months early also seemed suspicious. We have one idea as to why the two popstars decided to change their schedule without warning. Is the couple, dare we say it, expecting? An inside source confirms that this fact is indeed true.
Any ideas as to what Austin and Ally will name their bouncing baby boy or girl? Vote on our poll right HERE!
"Mom, I'm sorry, I have to go," he said when he finished reading. He was already out of the house when she replied.
When he got home, Trish dragged him out of the apartment and into the hall before he could say anything.
"Here," she handed him Ally's phone. "I'll try to get that article down as soon as possible, but until then people will see it, and you both will probably get bombarded on tweeter. I suggest you turn off your phone too, and make sure to keep both of them away from Ally, she's pretty torn up about it without everyone congragulating her about having a baby."
Austin nodded and entered his house to comfort his wife.
It'll be okay, he told himself that night as he rocked Ally back and forth, trying to calm her after hours of crying. We'll heal. Ally will get better.
Ally didn't get better.
Five months had passed, and she was slowly spiraling into depression; she barely ate, rarely slept, flinched from his touch and hadn't even written a new song or touched her beloved book in months. Austin felt powerless to help her.
One night he woke and found the other side of the bed empty.
He looked for Ally and found her in the living room, her book open on her lap.
At first he was happy, thinking that she had begun to heal at last, but then he noticed what she was doing. Rather than writing, she was tearing a page to shreds.
"Ally! Ally, stop, what are you doing?"
She ignored him, and began to tear the page more viciously.
He gently took the book from her and understood. It was the page where she had written that she was pregnant.
"Ally, I understand you're upset-"
"No, you don't understand!" Ally yelled. "You don't know what it's like…"
"What it's like to what, Ally? To lose a child? Because, if you hadn't noticed, I'm going through the same thing too!" he knew that yelling was the wrong way to go, but there was so much pent up frustration in him, he couldn't help it.
"BUT IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT!"
After a few moments Ally continued in a hushed tone. "Every day I wonder… what did I do wrong? What if I had acted differently? Rested more, eaten healthier… I did something wrong, Austin, not you. I know it's difficult for you too, I never said it wasn't, but… do you know how hard it is to know that it's your fault your child is dead?" Silent tears were streaming down her face.
"Ally…" he was at a loss for words, "Why didn't you tell me you felt this way? Why didn't you talk to me? We're married, for heaven's sake. That means we're in this together. For better, for worse."
Ally tried to shrug, but her shoulders were shaking too much. "Because it was your baby too… how can you even look at me, knowing that because of me, you won't be a father in a few months?"
"But I don't blame you. It's yours or anybody else fault. . Miscarriage… it happens. And it's hard. But the only way we can through this, the only way we can get better, is together." He flipped through her book, which was still in his hands, back to when they were fifteen. "'I will always stay, by your side forever, 'cause we're better together… we'll make it through whatever, 'cause we're better together,'" he read out loud. "Remember?"
Ally nodded slowly, and, though it was practically invisible, for the first time in a long while, she smiled.
"Daddy!"
Austin smiled as his blond, two years old son, Dylan, raced to him when he opened the door.
"Hey kiddo," he swung him up and Dylan screeched with laughter. "How was the daycare today?"
Dylan wrinkled his nose. "They made me finish all of my vegetables."
"Aw man," Austin grinned, setting Dylan back on the floor, "mommy makes me do that all the time." The toddler giggled.
"Speaking of mommy, where is she?"
Dylan pointed to the couch, where Ally was napping peacefully, a book on her chest. "She was reading, but then she fell asleep. She also made me watch my cartoons really quiet because the watermelon made her head hurt."
Austin stifled a laugh. Dylan was not very pleased to get a new sister, and had resorted to calling Ally's baby bump the "watermelon." Austin had to admit that twenty nine weeks in, her bump rather did look like she had swallowed a watermelon whole, but he would never say that aloud-he valued his life too much, and pregnancy made Ally all the more irritable.
"So, what do you say kiddo, should we wake up mommy or let her sleep and order pizza?"
"Pizza!" Dylan yelled. Unfortunately, in his excitement, he woke up Ally.
"Dyl', indoor voice," she muttered, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Austin? What are you doing home?"
"It's already six, Alls. Dylan here told me that the watermelon made you sleep through the afternoon."
"And what was all of this yelling about pizza?"
"Can we order pizza, mommy? Pleaaaase? I ate all of my vegetables at the daycare today," Dylan begged, giving her the puppy dog eyes he had inherited from his father.
"Fine," the two boys cheered, "but on one condition. Dylan comes to shower right now."
The little boy ran to the bathroom, stripping his clothes along the way.
Austin and Ally exchanged an amused glance. "I'm blaming everything on your genes," Ally said, walking-or waddling, hindered by her protruding belly-after their son.
"Funny, I remember your mom saying last week that he reminded her of you when you were that age," Austin smirked at her.
"That's because around her, he's angelic," Ally called out behind her. "And don't think I forgot the picture your mom showed me of you running around naked in the annual Moon picnic when you were three!"
Later that night, Austin finished doing the dishes and found Ally standing next to Dylan's bed, smiling softly as she watched him sleep.
"Hey," Austin whispered, careful not to wake him. "What're you doing?"
"I was just thinking," Ally replied, "I came up with another name, today."
Ever since they found out the baby's gender, they had been debating about names. Ally liked Brooklyn and Austin favorited Jemima.
"Let's hear it then." He wrapped an arm around Ally's belly, rubbing it softly.
She turned to face him, her smile holding a just hint of sadness.
"Hope."
As if in agreement, the baby kicked.
If you've made it this far, congratulations. I applaud you.
I'm blaming this on a three and a half hour math test and a severe lack of sleep. Like, most of this was written before six in the morning. Some of this was also written on Tuesday, when I thought my friends had forgotten my birthday (it was on a field trip, and in the end they barged into my room at the hostel we were sleeping at at two a.m. and surprised me). Also, today's the day Austin and Ally is ending (or as I like to call it, doomsday ;) ). I've been kind of depressed ever since the takeover weekend, and the fact that I'm seventeen and depressed over a Disney channel show makes me even more depressed.
This is dedicated to anyone who has had to hug me in the past week and a half (my mom is getting worried as to why I'm so hug-y all of a sudden) and especially to Arielle for knowing what feels are, being able to handle my feels and listening to me moan about Austin and Ally ending (though, to be fair, I did talk with you about Doctor Who, so we're even).
All the information about pregnancy progress came from: pregnancy-week-by-week. I hope my parents won't look through my phone history, because that'll be a pretty awkward conversation.
Thank you all for reading.
IMPORTANT: I'm currently writing another oneshot (this one is happy, though), but it can be split into a short multi-chap. The question is whether you guys want a multichip with shorter chapters or a long oneshot. If you decide on the multi-chap, the first chapter is almost ready to go. If no one says what they prefer, I'll keep it as a oneshot.