AN: Hey! It's Saturday:) I don't actually have much to say this time around... Just that that poll I mentioned a few chapters ago, it's been taken down! It was also about this chapter so voila! I had trouble with this one at first but I'm actually really proud of it and think it flows really well:) Let me know what you think! Read, Review, and Enjoy!

Disclaimer: It would be really funny if people thought I still owned the show:P These are just my ideas, Austin & Ally is not my show! (But this story is kind of my baby)

Parties & Mistakes

Chapter 12: Third Person POV

Trish shuffled across the mall cafeteria, aimlessly wandering. Dez had called on this Friday afternoon, to meet up almost an hour ago. But of course, Dez being Dez, he had not yet arrived. Trish had sent him what seemed like thousands of angry texts.

Where are you?

Are you going to get your ass here soon?

Look you wanted to meet up.

It's been an hour Dez.

Where the hell are you?

It was an understatement to say that Trish was frustrated. This whole week had been frustrating. Add on an encounter with Dez and you have a perfect week. It was hard for Trish to watch her best friend go through something like this and much like Ally, Trish had no idea what to make of it. Everything had gone from bad to worse. This whole event was really screwing up the dynamic of their friendship. It wasn't the four of them anymore. It was more like Trish and Ally, then Dez and Austin. But, in reality it was more like Austin vs. Ally, with Trish and Dez in the middle. And boy did the middle suck.

Trish sighed and slunk down into a chair. She didn't need this. On top of everything that Ally had been dealing with, and crying over, Trish did not need to deal with Dez. She was overjoyed when he called, thinking this would put an end to the whole feud. But with every passing minute she just became more and more angry. She could excuse being a few minutes late, but an hour? Please.

She shook her head and pulled out her cell phone for the millionth time. Still no response from Dez. Still no sign of him either. She scanned the cafeteria. The tables full of laughing mall customers, the line for Starbucks snaking around the corner, the mess someone had made in front of Mini's, and the colourful advertisements strewn about the walls all came into view. But still no Dez.

"God," Trish breathed. She swiped through her phone, finding the number she needed to call and placed it to her ear.

"Y'ello?"

"Where the hell are you?" Trish spoke.

"I'm in the mall, relax," Dez said breezily. Trish could almost picture him brushing her off.

She scoffed. "I've been here for an hour and you know I don't come early for things. But you told me to be here so I'm here. Why are you not here? This is important. This is probably the most important thing we've ever dealt with, Dez!"

"I know! That's why I called you," he said appearing at her table.

Trish shook her head and slammed her phone down on the table. She braced herself, making sure she didn't angrily jump him for being so late. This was serious business after all. The chair screeched as Dez pulled it and Trish took a sip of her Caramel Macchiato to calm her nerves.

"Why were you so late?"

"Does that really matter?" Dez asked, settling down. The only response was the stern gaze of Trish's steely eyes. He sighed. "I was with Austin, you happy? I couldn't exactly tell him where I was going."

"Some warning would have been nice..." Trish mused. She stared down at the peeling linoleum of the table. "So, what's up?"

"Austin didn't do it."

"I know."

Dez was taken aback. He stared at Trish in shock, grimacing. He drummed his fingers on the table, the noise echoing in the silence between them. "Does Ally know this?"

Trish shook her head solemnly. "She's too close to it all. She can't see passed what's obviously happening. And I can't blame her, I wouldn't believe it either if I was at the center. She can't go anywhere without someone realizing it's her and it sucks. It's torture," Trish ran her fingers around the rim of her cup. She paused then looked up at Dez. "She's holing herself up in the song room and writing. This is the one time I don't know if she should be doing that or not."

"What's she writing?"

"I don't know," Trish shrugged. "Something about all of this. I've caught glimpses. I saw something about blonde hair at one point, and something about hate at another... I really don't know what's going on."

"Honestly, I don't either," Dez laughed. "And this is a different kind of cluelessness than usual!"

Trish smiled sadly and aimlessly watched a teenage boy behind Dez holding hands with his girlfriend. Why couldn't it be that easy for Austin and Ally?

"How's Austin?" Trish asked.

"He's fine," Dez offhandedly said.

"What kind of fine?"

"The kind of fine that makes you super confused, and angry, and annoyed, and well you get the point. He's just- he's dealing. He knows he didn't tell Kira anything, but at the same time he's doubting everything he said because what if he gave her a hint? And he knows he can't ask Kira how she knew 'cause that will just start even more crap. And he knows he can't go to Ally 'cause they're both at odds with each other. And he can't come to you 'cause you keep yelling at him. So-"

"Well what am I supposed to do?" Trish asked throwing her hands into the air. "I can't just sit here and idolize him while my best friend hates him."

"I'm not saying idolize him, just you know, look at him every once in a while," Dez shrugged. He stared at a fly away curl from Trish's hair, avoiding looking directly at her eyes. It had been a while since the two of them had hung out alone. Ever since this whole ordeal had started their group dynamic had shifted, making it awkward for the two opposite sides to even be friends. Dez shook his head and finally met her eyes, the second part of her sentence finally registering. "Wait, Ally hates Austin now?"

Trish placed her cup back on the table and stared earnestly at him. "No. She's head over heels in love with him."

Smiles appeared on both faces before the realization struck. Sure, Austin and Ally loved each other, but there was a lot standing in between them.

"What are we supposed to do?" Trish asked.

"Is it really up to us?"

Silence fell between them again. The sounds of mall chatter filling the void. They both looked down, questioning why they had even met up. The normal conversations swelled around them. It was as though, everyone was mocking them. In their moments of complete abnormalcy, everyone was acting normal. And it was beyond the point of unfair.

"It has to be up to us. They aren't going to do anything otherwise. They'll just sit and mope and make things worse for themselves. I don't want to just sit here and watch that!" Trish said slamming her cup onto the table. A drop spilled out onto the surface and they watched it form into rivulets. Almost as though it was crying.

Dez shook his head. "But what can we do? It's not like we can have the discussion for them!"

"I know we can't, but we can egg them on. Like push them to the point where they have to talk."

"They're already at that point and still aren't talking."

Trish bit her lip and rolled her eyes. She got up from her chair and threw out the Starbucks cup. Dez followed her as she continued to walk away. A walk would clear their thoughts.

"Can you imagine how terrified they must be?" Trish asked. "This is completely uncharted waters."

Dez kicked at a balled up wrapper, before bending down and dunking it in the trash. He sighed when it missed. "I'd never want to be in their situation."

"Well don't get drunk at a party, then you'll never be in this position."

"Noted."

The conversation came to a lull again. It had never been this hard for either of them to come up with a plan. They passed the stores of the mall in silence, scuffing the floor, and glancing in the windows. Eventually their hushed shuffling brought them to the front of the Sonic Boom.

"Well. How did we get here?" Trish sighed. "I should go and talk to her, shouldn't I?"

"Is that your solution?" Dez asked, scratching his head.

"I don't know, maybe."

"Why don't I come with you?" Dez shrugged. "I mean, maybe if she hears it from me, she'll believe he didn't do it... Or she'll think I'm making it up."

"See you had me sold until that last part." Trish said agitatedly. She smoothed out the golden fabric of her shirt and headed towards the entrance.

"Wait!" Dez said, grabbing Trish's arm. "Am I coming with you or not?"

"Yeah," Trish said.

Dez squinted and scrunched up his face. "What?"

She rolled her eyes and gestured wildly at him. "God Dez, come on!"

The two friends stormed into the Sonic Boom. Lester Dawson jumped at their loud approach. He cocked his head. Although he wasn't entirely clear on what had been going on, he knew that something was up with his daughter's friends. Lester quickly broke off the conversation with a customer and hurried over to Trish and Dez.

"What's going on?" Lester asked. His face was scrunched up and tension etched the lines on his forehead.

"What?" Trish blinked, impassive. "Is that like a 'what's up?' sort of thing or a 'there's something wrong' thing?"

She made air quotes while pretending to be lost and raised her eyebrows. She knew exactly what Lester meant - the lines on his face spelled out a father's worry - but she was not about to get into this.

"Trish, what's been going on? Why is my daughter upstairs, moping around the song room?"

"She's always in there. It's not like that's anything new!" Trish brushed him off and began to head for the stairs. Dez looked between the two before smiling at Lester, then following Trish once more.

"Dez, wait," Lester spoke, placing a gentle hand on Dez's shoulder.

Dez slowly turned around, trying to remain impassive like Trish had. But Dez was not good at hiding secrets and was even worse at lying. This made impassive come out a lot more twitchy.

Lester smiled. "I haven't seen you around here in a while. How've you been?"

Trish paused on the way up the stairs. This had the possibility of turning very badly. She ran her nails along the blue rail trying to figure out her next move. She sighed and called out. "Hey Dez! Come on! Remember you don't have much time before your doctors appointment and really need to do your part of the project!"

Dez's shoulders shook in a sigh of relief. He waved to Lester and sprinted up the stairs two by two.

"I love you for being so on your toes!"

Trish stopped at the top stair and placed her hands on her hips. She raised her eyebrows at him. "Excuse me? We don't need another confession of love, you moron."

"Oh! No, that's not what I meant! I just meant you totally got me out of that and I can't think fast," Dez stared at her wide eyed. He vehemently shook his head but gave her a thumbs up.

"That's more like it," Trish mumbled and stomped off to the song room. She violently knocked on the door, yet spoke in her softest voice possible. "Ally? You in there?"

The door opened. Ally appeared on the other side, a sly smirk on her face and one eyebrow cocked. "So you knock as though you're the police, but talk as though I'm a toddler?"

Trish laughed. "Okay, maybe that wasn't the best route."

"You're just confused," Ally shrugged. "Lord knows that's a popular emotion."

Ally pivoted and headed into the song room, plopping back into the red armchair. Papers were scattered about the floor, black ink stained and crossed them, while lines creased the corners and crumpled the middle. There was a box of tissue hastily placed on the end table with a half empty water bottle sitting next to it.

"Made yourself at home, did you?" Trish mused.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry about the mess, I'm just trying to get everything right," Ally said, gathering various papers that were apparently more important than others. She bit her lip and chewed her hair, creating piles of useless words and useful songs. It was during a trip of bending for the next stack that she finally noticed Dez. "Oh."

"Ally, I'm here on behalf of Trish," Dez said.

Trish squinted at his attempt at sounding smart. She laughed lightly then nodded enthusiastically at Ally. "I invited him. He has some important information."

"Okay..." Ally blinked hesitantly, straightening herself and sinking back into the chair. She placed the papers onto her lap and stared at Dez, open mouthed, waiting for the response.

"Austin didn't do it," Dez shook his head as Ally's shoulders slumped. "Like, seriously. He didn't tell Kira anything."

"Okay," Ally said again.

"Okay?" Dez said, eyes shifting between Trish and Ally. Trish shrugged while Ally closed her eyes. "What's okay? What do you mean? Ally please think of the children! Won't somebody please think of the children!"

Trish erupted into laughter at his hysterics. It always turned into a drama with Dez.

Ally shook her head and laughed too. "What the hell are you doing?" she sniffed. She got up from her chair and wrapped her arms around him. "I've missed you Dez."

He awkwardly hugged her for a moment before pulling back. "I haven't really been gone..."

"I know," Ally smiled. "You've just been like Trish, stuck. But I've barely seen you or Austin and I miss you both."

"So then go and hug him!" Dez said, throwing his arms into the air.

"That's what I've been trying to do," Ally said, gesturing at all the papers on the floor. "I spent a while believing he did it this week, but I realized that didn't make sense. So I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and nothing seemed right. I just wanted something to actually make sense so I wouldn't have to feel sick anymore."

"Sick?" Dez asked taking a large step away from her.

"Not physically.. Well kind of physically, but just heartsick. I've felt like shit all week. I get up and I go about my day and every time I see Austin I just feel nauseas. I hate that somehow, that's what our relationship has become," She laughed sadly and sat down on the floor. She wiggled her blue painted toenails and pulled her hair out of the ponytail. "I've tried writing away everything, but every time I write I just feel worse and all the words get jumbled. I've wasted a ton of Kleenex and water bottles and papers, and I don't even know why."

Dez sat down on the floor and scootched next to Ally. He placed a hand on her knee. "You know what it's for," He smiled. "It's so I don't have to be left out anymore."

Ally laughed and Trish rolled her eyes. Trish scanned one of the stacks of paper. "You know," she started. "These aren't all that bad."

Ally looked up and widened her eyes. "No, no, no, no, no, don't touch those!"

"Ally, they're good. They're perfect. Aw! Oh my God, that's so cute!" Trish said. She grinned at Ally and Dez.

Ally's face was void as she stared at Trish. She pursed her lips and sniffed. "Trish."

"Go and talk to Austin. Sing to Austin."

"Trish," Ally pleaded.

"You have me under a spell, I feel sick, I feel loved. I can't look in your eyes, but I can't look away. Please, I need something to tell me to stay. You're the one that I need, we can't end up this way."

"Aw, Ally. I love it, go do it!" Dez said, a hand on his heart.

Once more Ally bit her lip. "I dunno. I don't think it's ready."

Trish got up from the other armchair and sat next to her best friend on the floor. She handed Ally the stack of papers. "You have something here. Something in this giant stack of words makes sense and will make sense to the both of you. You said yourself that music is the language you guys speak, so go and speak."

Ally took a giant breath and steadied herself. She glanced down at the pages and drew lines with her fingers. She closed her eyes and swallowed. "Okay."