Unsung: On Deaf Ears

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters appearing on the Disney Channel's original series, 'Hannah Montana', created by Michael Poryes, Richard Correll & Barry O'Brien. Characters are copyrighted to 'It's A Laugh productions'. Original characters are copyrighted to the original author (QYM). This series is posted to Girls Loving Girls with full permission of the author. No copyright infringement is intended or implied.

Feedback: Every author in his or her own way makes it a point to ask for feedback when posting a story, well me I don't usually. But there are several reasons as to why a reader should consider taking the time to give it. The simple fact is that giving some form of feedback is truly the most important thing a reader can do after reading and enjoying a story. Hopefully in the process providing that author with at least one viable reason as to what you liked about the story. This small amount of time spent will no doubt inspire the author to write more and possibly at a quicker pace, knowing that they have a fan base who are waiting on their next works. So thanks for the feedback and please keep it comin.

Original Airdate: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 @ 8:30 p.m.

Story Codes: no sex

And she swears there's nothing wrong
I hear her playing that same old song
She puts me off and puts me on - Bad Day, Fuel

Three Days Earlier

Miley snuggled close to Lilly and closed her eyes. During their three years together, they'd grown incredibly comfortable with each other, even more so than when they were merely best friends. There wasn't an inch of the other that one girl didn't know. While they hadn't had sex, they had gotten extremely close on several occasions and would have finished the job had there not been interruptions.

Lilly lifted a limp hand and settled it on Miley's thigh. It was comfortably quiet between them, each thinking her own thoughts and enjoying the present company. It was almost six o'clock on a Wednesday evening and the couple was relaxing on Miley's back porch. The sky was partially cloudy, but the last strains of the sun were still warming the air enough so that no jackets were needed.

"Lil?" Miley whispered, breaking their quiet moment.

"What?" Lilly shifted slightly and moved her hand from Miley's upper leg to rest upon Miley's knee.

"Didn't you tell your mom that you'd be home by six?" Miley hated being the responsible adult, but she felt that if Lilly got in trouble for spending time with her, Lilly's father would be even less likely to accept her.

"Yeah…" Lilly muttered. She didn't want to move from their positions, but she knew it was inevitable. Her mom expected her home every night for dinner with the family. As it was summer time, not even her brother was exempt. The only exception was when a family member had already made plans.

Miley kissed Lilly's temple gently, "I don't want to get you in trouble."

"I know." Lilly didn't move.

"I'll walk you home, how's that?" Miley negotiated.

Lilly smiled impishly, "And give me a good-bye kiss?"

Miley chuckled, "Of course."

It seemed that that was enough to rouse Lilly from her state of inactivity. She hopped to her feet, dragging Miley up with her. Miley laced their fingers together and the two walked back through the Stewart house and down the sidewalk. Although some of the neighbors had been less than pleased about the relationship years back, nearly all of them accepted it now. The only man who hadn't come around was Mr. Truscott.

They approached Lilly's front door and paused on the welcome mat. Lilly blushed slightly – she was still slightly shy when it came to giving affection, a trait that she knew would probably follow her through the rest of her life. Miley, however, had no qualms about publicly showing her love. She leaned in and gave Lilly a nice parting gift. The door swung open before they pulled away.

"Lillian Truscott, get in the house." Mr. Truscott demanded.

Lilly waved bashfully good bye as Miley set off down the street.

"Sorry, pops." Lilly greeted her father.

He shook his head. In three years not much had changed – he still didn't like the idea of his little girl being in a homosexual relationship, but he also realized that he had no power over who Lilly loved. He was trying to stay away from the two when they were together. It was easy to avoid trouble if he wasn't looking for it. The only place he drew the line, though, was under his own roof. If Miley was over, there was to be no girlfriend activity.

"Dinner's on the table." He stared at her and caused her slight discomfort.

"I'm home on time," Lilly responded and headed for the kitchen. According to her watch, it was thirty seconds 'til six.

"Hmm." He followed her to the kitchen, biting his tongue.

Dinner was uneventful. Lilly talked between mouthfuls about her plans with Miley the next day, trying to ignore the sour look that her father gave her. The two girls were going to take a short drive up to Los Angeles for the day and Lilly was terribly excited. When they were done eating, Lilly and her mother picked up the dishes and brought them into the kitchen. Lilly's brother slunk off to his room to play video games and Mr. Truscott headed to the living room to watch the tail end of a basketball game.

"Why doesn't Dad like it?" Lilly questioned, running the water in the sink for a few moments before checking the temperature. "I mean, like me and Miley."

"Lilly…" Mrs. Truscott was at a loss. She had tried to explain her husband's behavior so many times over the year and she never had anything useful to say.

"I mean, Miles and I have been together three years. I thought he would have gotten over it by now." Lilly dunked a plate into the sink.

"Lilly, you're father'd had those opinions for forty years before you came out. Three years isn't much of a dent in comparison."

"So I have to wait forty years for him to love me again?" Lilly complained, feeling melodramatic.

"You know he still loves you. It's just hard for him to change his mind. He's not young anymore. New ideas are difficult to accept after a certain point."

Lilly sighed and handed a clean dish off to her mother for drying. "I guess I'll wait some more, then."

They continued cleaning the dishes with Lilly washing and Mrs. Truscott drying. Their conversation turned from Mr. Truscott to Lilly's plans for college. Lilly was thrilled about college – She and Miley had both been accepted to U.C.L.A. While they weren't going to be roommates, they'd still be at the same school for four more years.

The phone rang moments before Mrs. Truscott threw down her dish rag with a contented sigh. Lilly leaned on the counter as her mom picked up the phone and listened for a few seconds in silence.

"Oh! I'll be right over!" Mrs. Truscott finally responded. She ended the call and turned to Lilly. "Mrs. Gomez has to take Scotty to the hospital. He broke his arm and she needs me to watch Cindy for an hour or so while she's gone. Tell your dad for me, will you?"

Without waiting for an answer, Mrs. Truscott grabbed her purse and hurried out of the house. Lilly waved good bye to her mom's back before wandering into the living room. She threw herself onto one of the recliners and propped her feet up.

"Mom went down the street. Scotty broke his arm and Mom's watching Cindy." She relayed the information to her father.

Mr. Truscott chuckled. "Didn't he just break his leg last year?"

"Yeah. That was playing soccer." Lilly nodded agreeably.

"Active kid." Mr. Truscott groaned as the team he was supporting missed a three-point shot. The game stopped temporarily as a commercial came on.

Lilly kicked her feet against the furniture, deciding on how to best phrase her question. It just didn't make sense to her and she was dying to know what his problem with homosexual relationships was. While had grown somewhat acceptant in the past few years, he still was dead set against Lilly dating Miley.

She finally settled on an indirect route. "Daddy, why don't you like Miley?"

Mr. Truscott narrowed his eyes. He had been trying to avoid this kind of conversation. "It's not that I don't like Miley."

"So what is it?"

"Lilly, you're a young girl."

"Who loves another young girl, so what?" Lilly didn't mean to be so confrontational, but she was wounded by her father's thoughts.

"Lillian. Nothing'll ever come from it. You can't have kids, you can't get married, you can't do anything." Mr. Truscott shook his head, "Apart from the values I was raised on, it just seems, well, pointless. It's a dead-end relationship and I don't want that for my little girl."

Lilly shook her head vehemently, "It's not a dead end! Miley and I are going to spend our lives together!"

"Lil, you're eighteen. You have a lot of your life still ahead of you. What you want today isn't what you'll want tomorrow." Ed reasoned.

"I'll want her forever." Lilly hissed.

"That's what you say now," he replied, trying to keep his smugness from his voice.

"I know what I want!" She yelled.

"No, you don't!" He let his temper get the best of him. Both of them were on there feet, growling at each other. "You're my daughter, Lilly. I've known you for eighteen years. Five years ago you wanted to a pro-skater, and now you want to study art in college. You will change your mind. I'm trying to save you some heart ache."

"I still want to be a pro-skater, dad," she used his name so disdainfully, he would have sworn it was a weapon, "Wanting to be an artist doesn't change that!"

"It's all because of Miley! She's ruining our family!" Ed responded angrily, "Before you two started this whole mess, you were happy! I was happy, your brother was happy, your mom was happy! We were all happy!"

"And we still are!" Lilly clenched one hand into a fist. She'd never hit her father, but she was quickly losing her composure.

"No, Lilly! We're not!" He was red in the face now. "We… we…"

In a split second, all her anger had faded. She watched in fascinated horror as he mouth gaped a few times wordlessly. He clutched at his chest, his breathing suddenly turning into reedy gasping.

"Daddy?" She questioned nervously.

"Wuh…" He fell to his knees, blood draining from his face.

Lilly stared at him a moment longer before running back to the kitchen and grabbing the phone. Her fingers trembled as she hit the buttons for 9-1-1. The rest of the evening was a blur. By the time the ambulance reached the residence, Lilly was sobbing into her brother's shirt. She wouldn't admit it, but she felt this whole thing was her own fault.

By nine o'clock, all the Truscotts were down at the Malibu County Hospital. Mrs. Truscott had called yet another neighbor to watch Cindy as she rushed to the hospital for her husband. She ran past Mrs. Gomez on the way in with an apologetic wave.

The hours passed with Mr. Truscott unconscious on his hospital. The late night hours drifted by slowly and Lilly nodded off at round three in the morning. She slept uneasily in a chair in the waiting room, head propped against the wall. It was hardly comfortable, but she didn't think she deserved any comfort.

She was roused in the morning as her cell phone jangled in her pocket. Sleepily, she pulled it out and flipped it open, "Hello?"

"Lil, where are you?" Miley's cheery tone did nothing for Lilly's mood.

"Nowhere. Look, Miley, can we do this trip another day? Today's not so good."

"Lilly! We've been planning this for weeks. What happened?"

"It's just a family thing." Lilly tried to make it sound like nothing. In an attempt to get Miley off her back, she perked up slightly, "I'm really sorry about this. I'll make it up to you, I swear."

Miley sighed, "Will you call me later?"

"I'll try." Lilly agreed.

"Love you. See you later, I guess." Miley was hesitant to hang up for she sensed something was up with Lilly. She had learned over the years, though, that pressing Lilly for details didn't always work out. Lilly would come around when she was ready to talk.

"Yeah. Bye." Lilly hung up quickly. She regretted not saying 'I love you' in return, but she didn't linger on it. Miley would understand.

Mrs. Truscott had been dozing beside her and had woken up during the conversation. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. "Lilly, any change?"

Lilly shrugged, "I just got up."

"Well, I need to run home. I'll bring a change of clothing back for you."

"Where'd Will go?" Lilly questioned, glancing around for her brother.

"He went home about an hour after you fell asleep. He's still got work today." Mrs. Truscott explained blandly. She felt so tired and not just because she had spent the night in a chair.

Lilly nodded. The panic from the evening before had faded slightly from her nerves. Her dad was going to be okay; he was safely in the hospital with doctors who could help him. But it still weighed down on her mind that she had caused this.

"So when will you be back?"

Ellen glanced at her watch. "Two hours, tops, I think."

Lilly got up and stretched. "Okay."

When she was alone, Lilly hurried to Mr. Truscott's room and pulled a chair up to his bedside. The nurses the night before had assured the family that what had occurred was a minor heart failure. Mr. Truscott would be given medication and rest, and would be fine within a few days.

She sat quietly beside her father and gazed at his still face. If only, she thought despondently, if only Miley wasn't such a big issue. So deep in thought was she that she didn't notice a nurse bustle in.

"You his daughter?" The nurse questioned. Her ratty brown hair was pulled into a loose pony tail but most of her hair still billowed around her face. The white scrubs she wore were tighter than they needed to be.

"Yes."

"I remember this happened to my dad when I was your age." The nurse nodded knowingly. Lilly had the feeling that if this nurse was off duty, she'd most likely be chewing bubblegum and popping her inflated balloons loudly.

"Yeah?" Lilly tried her hardest to be polite.

"I was datin' this guy, Ricky. Real bad news guy. My dad didn't like the guy at all, but I o'course worshipped the ground he walked on." The nurse continued. She went to Mr. Truscott's side and took his pulse quickly. "We had this heated argument and just like that, my dad had a conniption or something. Anyway, the stress from his work was already making his heart stressed, and my relationship wasn't helpin' at all."

"Oh?" Lilly bit her lower lip, "So what did you do?"

"What else could I do? I had to dump Ricky 'til Pops got better. It turned out he was datin' on the side, so it was better that we broke up. Pops was happier, too." The nurse pulled back Mr. Truscott's eyelids and flashed a light in them. His pupils fluctuated normally. "So, got a boyfriend?"

Lilly shrugged, "I guess you could say that."

The nurse chuckled, "Well, if he was any part of this, maybe you should think of takin' some time apart. Let your dad heal, an' all."

"I couldn't do that to Miles." Lilly shook her head.

"Miles, eh?" Her preliminary checks finished, the nurse made a few scribbles on the chart that was hanging at the edge of the bed. "Well, I'm not goin' to tell you what to do…"

Lilly shrugged the advice off. It was silly advice, she decided. Like dumping Miley would help her dad get better.