A/N: I think I'm rushing Austin's revelation about his feelings a little bit, so I apologize for that. But in my head, A & A have been in love with each other forever, and it's so much more fun to write smitten Austin than clueless Austin.

Although both are pretty fun.

Hope you like it!


"Oh, dream maker,

you heart breaker,

wherever you're going,

I'm going your way..."

-Moon River

Austin sits in Ally's box-filled apartment for four hours. He's still grappling with the kiss, with the conversation, with the sudden clarity that Ally is someone he can't lose. Not like this. He pages through her songbook and wonders when she stopped writing duets, or when she started using pen instead of pencil, or who's been playing guitar to her piano. At midnight, when she hasn't come back, he goes home, determined to come back to talk to her tomorrow.


But Ally does an incredibly accurate impression of a secret agent for the next few days. She dodges his calls, avoids the studio, and when he tries to stake out her apartment, she sics her 70 year-old neighbor on him. After four hours of mothballs and photo albums, Austin is covered in cat hair, knows way too much about Mrs. Cuthbert's grandchildren, and still hasn't talked to Ally.

So he goes back to his apartment, unplugs his computer, and sends his manager straight to voicemail. Then he sits on the couch with her songbook and the note, and talks himself in and out of being in love with Ally Dawson.


He stews in self-pity and guilt for three days until he finally breaks down and calls Dez for the first time in half a year. Austin spends ten minutes apologizing to the static-y silence on the other end, before he finally pulls out the big guns.

"I was a shitty friend, Dez. I know. And I don't know how I can make it up to you, but I'm going to try. But I need your help right now; not just as a best friend. As the love-whisperer."

He holds his breath. The silence stales, and just when he's given up, Dez's voice comes quietly through the speakers.

"You're an idiot. And you owe me tickets to every Zaliens premiere in the foreseeable future." He pauses. "Now tell me your problems, young grasshopper. And I shall bestow my wisdom."

Austin chokes out a laugh that sounds more like a sigh of relief."I really messed up, Dez. With Ally. She's moving to Seattle. And she's in love with me. I think she's been in love with me for awhile. and I..." He stumbles over his words as he remembers the look in Ally's eyes when she turned towards the door. "I kissed her. And then I let her walk away. Dez, I just let her walk out of my life, and she's the best thing that's ever happened to me and I took her for granted and now she's leaving and I don't know what to do to stop her, and..."

Dez's reply is pensive. "And you're in love with her too?"

Years of thin-lipped smiles and empty platitudes and Austin's forgotten how blunt honesty sounds. He doesn't remember his friend being this insightful, and a fresh wave of guilt washes over him as he remembers how far removed he's been. But then he pays attention to Dez's words and he remembers why he called.

"Yes. No. I don't know. I kissed her and for a few seconds, it was like the world turned upside-down. But what if it was just a fluke? What if kissing her was a mistake? I'm only twenty-four; I've been in dozens of relationships Dez, and I've never even been remotely close doing being in love. I don't know how it feels. What if it was just indigestion? Or maybe-maybe she was just wearing really good chapstick. Or it's a chemical imbalance." Austin keeps grasping at straws, rational reasons to explain the kiss because he's still sowing his wild oats, dates strings of beautiful women; he's been the youngest of People's most eligible bachelors for two years now and he's famously unattached, so he can't, can't be in love with his best friend. Can't have been stupid enough to let her go. "Maybe I was just caught up in the moment, worried about her leaving. Or..."

Dez cuts him off. "Austin. Either pull your head out of your ass and realize that you're in love with her or deny it for another ten years; but if you can't make up your mind, let her move on. She deserves better than this, waiting for you to make up your mind about whether you want to be pop music's playboy for the rest of your life."

Austin exhales. "Wow, Dez. Harsh."

"You weren't there, Austin." Dez says sharply. "Every time you ignored a call or forgot a writing session or ditched Ally for another Hollywood party, you broke a piece of her. Trish and I watched as she tried to become someone she wasn't. We almost lost her for a little bit, and when she came back, she was a shadow of the Ally we used to know. You remember, right? The starry eyes and big dreams and the faith she had in you? In friendship? In people? So yeah, it is harsh, Austin. But you've spent three years chasing fame and fortune and now you suddenly decide that maybe you love her? That's not fair. And you know it."

Austin's reply is barely audible. "I just don't...god, I don't know how to love her right. And she deserves someone who loves her right." His stomach turns at the thought of Ally with someone else, but he dismisses it as bad sushi. "Maybe I should just let her go."

Dez mutters for a moment; Austin catches something about "Trish" and "I'm so dead," but before he can ponder it for too long, Dez starts speaking again.

"As Ally's friend, I am pretty much all for you letting her go." Austin has never heard Dez sound this serious before, and it is this more than anything that pulls him to attention. "But as your friend, I'm going to try one more time. How do you really feel about Ally?"

Austin thinks about the crumpled paper sitting on his nightstand.

There's no way I could make it without you.

He takes a breath and lets it out slowly. "I see her and the entire world tilts. I've never met anyone who understands music she way she does, who can pick out a melody from a squeaky door, or a thunderstorm, or from thin air. Sometimes it scares me how much she trusts me. Singing with her makes the rest of the world fade away, and when she smiles at me, I feel like I can do anything. She makes me want to be a better person, and watching her laugh is better than playing the biggest stadium show in the world." Austin's voice softens as he glances over to her songbook, forgetting he's talking to Dez as he continues. "There were days when I'd sit through interviews and parties and publicity stunts and the only thing that would get me through was her lyrics. I love that she sees the best in everyone. I miss her optimism. And it kills me to realize that I'm losing her, because I don't know who I am without her, and it's my fault that she's leaving. My fault that she doesn't know that I-"

Dez chuckles over the line and Austin stops, startled by the reminder that he's not alone.

"Huh." Austin whooshes out. "I am in love with her." He repeats it, as if testing out the words. "I'm in love with Ally." Then he whoops, jumping up from the piano bench. "I'm in love with Ally Dawson!"

Dez's response is amused. "Glad you've come to your senses."

Austin feels lighter than he has in years. "Dez, how did you know? How were you so sure?"

"Don't be a puddinghead." Dez sounds like himself again, ridiculous and unassumingly wise. "You've been in love with Ally since we were fourteen. It just took you a damn long time to realize it."

"So what do I do now?" Austin's smile drops as he looks at the boxes cast around the room. "She's leaving, and I don't even know how to find her."

"She's coming to New York in four days, on Friday. She's staying with Trish, but she leaves for Seattle on Sunday, so you have that long to figure something out." Dez's voice is lighthearted. "You two crazy kids'll work it out. The love whisperer has worked his magic."

"Thanks, man. I owe you big." A grin spreads across Austin's face. "I'll see you soon."

Dez yells into the phone just before Austin hangs up. "AND REMEMBER. FOLLOW YOUR HEART. AND THE DUCKS."


Austin shoots a hurried text to his manager, emails polite rejections to half a dozen songwriters, and takes the next flight out to Miami. Two hours after he gets off the plane, he finds himself in the familiar doorway of Sonic Boom.

The store is buzzing with activity, and Austin glances up at the practice room for a moment before bringing himself back to focus. He makes a beeline towards the register, where Penny Dawson is struggling to help a customer restring his guitar.

"Here, let me." Austin reaches for the guitar and strings it with practiced ease. The guitar's owner, a boy who looks roughly seventeen, gapes at him.

"You're Austin Moon."

Austin shrugs. "Yeah."

"Dude. That's awesome."

The teenager leaves the store with an autographed guitar and a mile-wide smile, waving at Austin the entire way out the door. Austin waves back, then turns to meet the cool gaze of Ally's mother.

"Hello Austin. Haven't seen you for awhile." Her voice is inscrutable.

Austin swallows. "Hi Mrs. Dawson."

Penny shoos away a few customers ogling Austin and flips the closed sign on the door. Then she turns to face Austin with an unreadable expression and crossed arms. "So. What can I do for you?"

"I'm in love with your daughter."

Penny raises her eyebrows. "Is that so?"

Austin blurts out the rest of his request in a nervous rush. "I know, it caught me off guard too, but I'm in love with her and I have been an enormous idiot and she's moving to Seattle, but you probably already knew that, because you're her mother, of course you knew that, but I didn't and now I do and then she told me she loved me and I kissed her but then she wouldn't talk to me and I wasn't sure if I really loved her and then I realized that I did. And now I'm going to lose her unless I can find her and tell her how I feel; but Ally deserves something monumental and special and perfect because she is. Special and perfect, I mean, not monumental because she is not a monument and she's not huge-she's actually really tiny, like the tiniest person I know, but that's not a bad thing, because she has a really big heart, and this is not going nearly as well as I thought it was going to go and I'm not even sure what I'm saying right now and I can't stop talking and I don't know why..."

He takes a huge gulp of air and continues. "And I came here to convince you that I'm trying to change and be a better person, the kind of person who deserves your daughter because I know I've royally screwed things up with Ally and I know you probably know how much of a jackass I've been-I didn't mean to say jackass in front of you-and now I've said it again, please forget that entire last sentence? And I was also wondering if I could go up to the practice room really quickly, because there are some songs that Ally and I never finished and there's one that I'd really like to finish for her-" Austin's clamps shut as Ally's mother raises a hand to stop his rambling.

Penny bites back a smile as she looks at this boy in front of her, jacket inside-out, messy hair, breathless and nervous, so different from the veneer and closed-off brooding she's seen in all the tabloid pictures. The look in his eyes makes her a little giddy for her daughter, and her heart softens for these kids she's watched grow up, grow apart, and now, grow together.

"Go on upstairs, Austin. Ally keeps all the old sheet music in the piano bench."

Penny hears a few thumps and a muffled curse as Austin runs up the stairs. She's just finished shooting an email to Trish when she looks up to see wide-eyed shoppers gathering outside the store, watching as Austin coming back down the stairs, papers trailing as he stuffs them into a guitar case slung over his shoulder. He's halfway to the door when Penny's voice stops him.

"Take care of our girl, Austin." Her voice is gentle, but firm, and Austin understands the warning in the blessing.

"Thank you!" Austin yells, already jogging away backwards. "I won't let you down, Mrs. Dawson!"

Penny smiles as she hears the ping of her email and turns to see Trish's reply.

Hey Mrs. D,

Ally just landed. Has no clue. Whatever Austin is planning had better be good.

Trish

P.S. Don't you just love love?

Penny turns from the computer to see Austin sprinting through the crowd outside the store. "Oh, Ally, you are in for a crazy weekend."


Next up: Oh, Austin Moon. How are you going to win the girl? And the perpetual Austin & Ally question: will she stay, or will she go?