You're the sun, you're the day (the light that guides me through)

I will bring the dream to life (hold on, just hold on)

A/N: This chapter is so much longer than the others, but hopefully that's not a bad thing.

I tried being introspective again so hopefully I did okay with it. A lot happens in this chapter which also contributes to its length.

I'm taking a lot of liberties regarding how record labels and contracts work but I cannot be bothered to look stuff up for fanfiction. Just keep that in mind lmao.

Maybe read and hopefully enjoy? :)

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Ally had the sinking feeling she messed up.

It wasn't a big mistake. Not really. And it took her a while to realize her mistake.

The mistake in question?

Going and developing feelings for her friend while said friend was in the middle of an emotional crisis. Well, really, it was just the timing that was the problem.

Her feelings, while something she needed to figure out and fast, couldn't really be classified as a mistake. Ally didn't even know they existed until the night she picked Lauren up from the airport.

Seeing Lauren in person for the first time since the group's departure, it felt like the nervous butterflies Ally had when getting ready to perform were cranked up by a scale of a thousand. She'd pushed it aside thinking it was just being nervous after not seeing the other woman in a while.

When they went to bed the night Lauren arrived, Lauren had fallen asleep easily. Ally, however, had stayed up for another two hours with her brain running a thousand miles a minute. Lying there, with Lauren half on top of her, sleeping peacefully as though nothing could touch her, Ally had the sudden realization that everything about the situation just felt right in a way that hadn't ever occurred in previous relationships.

Like Lauren was a missing piece to a puzzle Ally had been missing.

It was a very jarring realization to come to at nearly one in the morning with said person sleeping against her. Especially when she didn't think she'd ever felt that kind of pull towards Lauren before.

Then again, why hadn't she given Lauren's jacket back when she had so many chances too before? And why else would Ally where it everywhere any time possible instead of whatever else was in her closet, or even insist on wearing it despite her publicist's insistence on another jacket?

She had started calling Lauren 'babe'. A thing she had never done before, and yet it just sort of slipped out naturally around the other woman.

What possibly should have been the most obvious sign was that Ally didn't even attempt to put up a fight about Lauren's demands to share a bed. Not to mention their current position of Lauren practically wrapped around her like a cat as they laid in bed after their spontaneous Waffle House and night club excursion.

(Ally was not calling it a date. Nope. It was not a date. Even if the feeling of Lauren's arms around her as they watched the cover band at the club made her absolutely weak in the knees, it was not a date.)

Plus there was the fact that Lauren was absolutely, without a doubt, beautiful. Attractive. Gorgeous. She really didn't want to sound like frat boys she had the un-pleasure of meeting before, but Lauren was hot. (Lauren had called her hot before, but Lauren had also been drunk and her filter tended to vacate the premises when that happened. Ally also figured repeating drunk Lauren's thoughts shouldn't really count, but whatever. At least Lauren had better manners and was way more pleasurable to be around than a frat boy.)

Ally had the thought all of that might be considered slightly gay activity, even though she didn't think she didn't really consider herself gay.

Maybe it was just part of the 'I suddenly have feelings for my friend' handbook. If that was even a thing, and it probably didn't exist. Otherwise she might consult it to figure out just what she was supposed to do.