AUTHOR'S NOTE - I'm back, now that my finale fever is getting better. Most of this was written on the night of the finale, since I had to stay up till 6 am to watch it. I loved every second of it but I'm not going to lie I Was Really Disappointed With Season 6A as a whole. I always pictured Alison working with the girls and building the broken bridges with them. But here she was hiding out and pining after strangers twice her age! To make matters worse Emison still haven't discussed their kiss. :((((( So hope I did okay, compensating for that.
BACKGROUND -This is set sometime after 6.4. Alison and Lorenzo have kissed once. Alison is working with the girls on a plan to trap A/Charles. I know that now we love Cece but at this point no one knew much about Charles, except that he was Alison's brother.
It was raining. That was not part of the plan and Alison couldn't afford things not going her way. Not today.
The rain was getting worse and Alison could hardly see the road. The exit Toby had marked off on the map had to be nearby but the rain made it impossible to find it. She swerved the car to the side of the road, almost hitting a road mile and braked hard. The car stopped, the wheels screeching and skidding to a halt.
Alison's hands were wrapped around the steering wheel tight enough to make them white. Raindrops were pelting against the windows. The sheer volume and ferociousness of the sound would otherwise have been frightening but today it helped drown the sound of her heart hammering against her chest. Alison was not prepared for tonight. She would never be!
No matter how much Spencer wanted this to be about the girls planning an offence on their tormentor, it was still just a desperate last attempt at a defense. One that would hopefully rid them of the shadow that loomed over them for years.
If this didn't work the girls were handing their heads on a platter to her brother to do as he pleased. Unfortunately for them, the last months had shown that her brother was not the best host.
The girls had been to hell and back. They had returned with gaping wounds, none physical and yet wounds that Alison knew were far worse. She could not and would not put them in harm's way again.
Irrespective of what everyone thought, Alison was not selfish. She was a survivor and to someone who knew nothing of what she had lived through, her fight to survive and keep her loved ones safe at any cost could come across as harshly self-centered and shrewd.
No one had looked beyond the steely exterior to see what lay within. The fear and the longing, the loneliness and the responsibility of making sure that those close to her didn't pay for her actions- these were things that mostly went unnoticed. Well, almost no one had noticed! But thinking about 'her' was not an indulgence she could currently afford. Alison did not want to lose herself in emotion right now.
She sighed and looked at the map that lay on the passenger seat. She was definitely on the right road and had either missed the exit or was very close to it. Her phone beeped and lit up indicating that she had received a message.
'You wanted me. You got me. Come alone. 11 p.m. don't be late. – Charles'
Alison looked down at her watch. It was just past eight but she wanted to be there well in advance to execute everything as planned. She needed to set up the cameras and the trap and it would take longer since she was doing it alone.
She hoped she would be able to reason with her brother, talk to him and persuade him to give up this game he was playing. She wanted to be rid of the torment without actually hurting the tormentor, if possible. But if things got ugly she was prepared and would do what it took to keep everyone safe. She felt the gun she had in the holster on her thigh, beneath her skirt. Yes, she would do it if she had no other option.
She also wanted to mark an exit for herself in the event that things didn't go as planned. The girl's plan involved Toby and Lorenzo as backup but she didn't have that option. If only the rain would ease up for a few minutes, just till she found her way to the old factory. It had to be not more than a five minute drive away. Currently she could see nothing at all.
There was a loud banging on her window that made Alison almost jump out of her skin. She was terrified, frozen in place. She could see nothing through the window and was too afraid to roll down the glass.
The banging came again. This time it was accompanied by a voice.
"Ali?"
Alison let out the breath she had been holding in and then found a surge of anger take over. What was she doing here?
"Ali," came the voice again. "Open up. I know you're in there."
Alison opened the window and found herself looking at a very wet, very pale Emily. "What are you doing here, Emily? Are you trying to kill yourself?" Alison's voice was cold and her tone icy but her eyes gave away something else-something that only Emily could see, something that Emily had always seen.
"Are 'you' trying to kill me? Am I to freeze to death out here?" was Emily's quick response. She had played this game with Alison long enough to know that the colder Alison seemed, the more desperately was she trying to protect someone.
Alison silently unlocked the doors and rolled up her window. Emily walked over to the passenger side of the car and got in. In the few seconds that Emily took to get into the car, Alison's expression had changed from completely emotionless to frantically desperate.
The moment Emily was seated; Alison locked the doors and turned around to face her. "Why are you here?" The exasperation in her voice mirrored in her eyes.
"No, Alison. You don't get to ask the questions." Emily was furious. Alison had seen her this way on one other occasion-the night she told Alison she was done with her. Yet today here she was, not quite done, following Alison in the rain.
Emily rambled on, "It's late and we all agreed no one was going to leave their house alone. I don't see you wearing the earrings with the tracking devices that Caleb gave each of us, either. What are you trying to do?" The last question was almost cried out.
"I am trying to keep us all alive." Alison replied, trying hard to stay calm. "I can't let any of you put your lives at risk anymore. I had to do this alone. Don't you get it?"
"No, I'm sorry but I don't," Emily replied, shivering as she spoke. She was dressed in a pink tank and a blue plaid shirt thrown over denim shorts, all of which were soaked through. The shiver did not go unnoticed; Alison extended her arm and turned on the heater in the car.
"Take that off," she said, pointing to the shirt and tank. She then leaned over and got a duffel bag from the back seat from which she procured a grey hoodie that she handed over to Emily. "Here," she offered, her tone gentler than before.
Emily hesitated but quietly did as she was told. She discarded her shirt and then her tank before slipping the hoodie over the upper half of her body that was now bare except for a black bra. Alison had turned away and kept her eyes fixed on the instrument panel while Emily changed, acutely aware of the awkwardness that filled the air.
"How did you know where I was?" she inquired, when Emily was done and was warming her hands in the hot air from the vents.
"I wanted to talk to you so I came over but I saw your car leave the driveway as I approached your place. It didn't look like you had someone with you, so I followed," Emily replied.
"I didn't see a car following me. I kept checking for lights in the rear view mirror."
"I wasn't in a car. I biked to your place. Its back there, behind a tree on the side of the road," she said pointing to the left.
Alison's eyes opened wide as she turned to look at Emily. "It's a forty-five minute drive and its been raining like this for the past thirty."
Emily said nothing. Thankfully owing to the rain, Alison had driven carefully without speeding but it was a long ride all the same. The ache in her legs was killing her as much as the cold in her bones but neither could compare to the stabbing pain she had felt in her heart the entire time she had been following Alison, riding as fast as her legs would allow, wondering if Alison was being lured off by Charles again.
"Why do you keep doing this?" Alison's voice was nothing more than a whisper as she looked down at her hands in her lap.
"I think you are the one lying to us and going off on your own. Again! You are the one who keeps doing this." Emily sounded more hurt and confused than angry and she was! She was trying hard to trust Alison, everyone was. Why did Alison always have to make it so hard to do that?
"No. Why do you keep doing this? Giving me hope." Alison's voice was low and every word seemed to be an effort to get out.
Emily stayed silent and so Alison went on. "I thought we were done, you said you didn't want anything to do with me and yet here you are. I settled for someone I thought I could possibly love at some point down the line. I'm working so hard at trying to care about him. Then I find you outside my car window and I'm right back where I began… Hanging on to hope."
The thought of Alison with someone else felt like a thousand needled stabbing at her heart but Emily had only herself to blame for that. Her eyes stayed glued in front of her as she replied, "Did you really think that? Did you believe that?"
She turned slowly till her eyes rested on Alison's profile. Her blonde curls hid most of her face but Emily could see her lips quivering with emotion. Her heart ached for the blonde like it always had. She had loved Alison knowing full well everything that she was because the truth was Emily was the only person that really saw 'everything' that Alison was.
For most people Alison was the queen bee, the manipulator, the liar and the bully but that wasn't all she was. To Emily, Alison was also the girl who was occasionally vulnerable, who protected her friends, who dreamt of doing simple things with Emily, who created a fantasy world of her own where she escaped to when reality got too harsh. Emily loved her for all she was and accepted her for all she was. Knowing full well that she was probably the only one who did so, Emily had given up on the blonde.
She had snapped in a moment of weakness. The words had left her lips before she had the time to think about it and once said she was trapped in a maze of regret, guilt and doubt. The words that meant nothing to her five minutes later had obviously meant a lot to Alison. All this while Alison had thought Emily was really done with her!
Emily went on almost apologetically, "I didn't mean it Ali. None of it! Even if I did at that moment it was because I was engulfed by emotion-rage, disappointment and the heartbreak of knowing that you could still lie to me after everything that happened."
She wanted to go on but was cut off by a loud crack of thunder. The rain did not seem to be stopping anytime soon. Alison finally turned to face Emily, her eyes filled with pain like Emily had seldom seen before. "I didn't lie to you." The sentence held the weight of years of unasked questions and unspoken feelings.
"You didn't tell me the truth either," Emily argued. "I need to trust you, Ali. Not just trust what you say to me but also trust that there is nothing unsaid that lurks in the shadows. I can't and won't be blindsided anymore."
"Maybe. I don't deny keeping things to myself but it was to protect you. All of you."
"You spent two years on the run to protect us and yourself. It didn't help. We have all spent years fighting to live a moment without fear. You never gave honesty a chance. Have you ever wondered about the alternative? If we could have helped and worked together maybe A or Charles or whoever this is would have been behind bars by now."
"I couldn't risk it."
"You couldn't risk it so you did what you had to protect us. Have you ever wondered about what we felt or wanted Ali? Do you want to know how it felt thinking I was right there asleep in the barn while you were a few yards away attacked and killed? Do you care to know how it felt when you returned, and I found out you were out on the streets so long fighting to stay alive and I couldn't be there to help you, protect you?" Emily's voice cracked. She was pouring her heart out but Alison didn't really need to hear the words; she could see the hurt she had caused in the brunette's eyes.
"I loved you Ali." The words tore through her heart and stabbed Alison's. "I could do nothing to keep you safe. You never gave me a chance,"
Alison knew this wasn't the time or the place but she was also aware that they might never find the right time and place. Each of them had struggled for years to say out loud what they felt and that right time had never arrived. So she did what she had wanted to do for months; she reached out and pulled Emily into her arms. She got no resistance so she held on tighter, crushing the girl in her arms to squeeze out every molecule of air that was between them.
"Don't say that," Alison said softly against Emily's neck. Her hands gently rubbing the back of the girl she so badly wanted to protect. "You have always kept me safe, Em. The hope of finding my way back to you someday kept me safe. You saved me from Charles that night in my house, Em. You are the only safety I have known in my life."
"But you keep lying to me," Emily said lifting her head from the shoulder she had wanted to rest her head on ever since she could remember. "Again and again and again. I don't know if anything you say to me is true. Today, before that or even that night when…"
Emily couldn't finish her sentence. She found her lips silenced by the softest lips she had ever felt against her own. They moved against hers slowly, stripping away at the walls of doubt that stood between them. Emily felt Alison's hand move up her back, gently stroking the skin at the back of her neck and then finding their way into her hair. Alison pulled Emily in closer till Emily felt her inhibitions give way and her body surrendering to what it had always sought – Alison.
Emily lost all consciousness of where they were and how painful the last few minutes had been. She was lost in the sensation of the tongue that slowly moved against her lower lip, which she gave in to immediately. Alison kissed her slowly and deeply banishing every other thought from Emily's mind and Emily surrendered to her much the same that she had the first time they had kissed in the woods.
Before she melted away and lost her self in everything 'Emily', Alison moved her lips away from the brunette's to look into her eyes as she spoke. "I love you. I always will. I always did. I told you that night in my room — your feelings weren't one-sided Em. I wanted you as much as you wanted me. I always have. I need you probably even more than you do me. I love you. Believe me Em, I love you."
Alison couldn't believe she had actually said those words aloud. They were words she had often spoken within the depths of her heart. Sometimes alone in the dark in the basement of an abandoned building and sometimes in the back of a truck on its way to a new town she sought refuge in. But today as she heard them slip through her lips they resonated through her body and soul and she knew she would never feel the same way about anyone ever again. Emily Fields was the one; she had always been the one.
Alison wanted Emily to know that. She didn't want her to ever doubt what she meant to her. She didn't know what was going to happen in the next few hours but she knew she couldn't walk away with Emily not knowing that she meant everything to her.
"I love you too. I always have," Emily replied. "That night you told me you cared, it felt like every dream I had ever had was fulfilled, every prayer had been answered. I thought we had finally found our way back to each other and I didn't care about anything anymore. Nothing A could have done would matter, if I had you by my side."
"It felt exactly the same to me Em," Alison whispered stroking Emily's hand that was in hers with her thumb.
"But the next morning when we found out you lied again, I felt like nothing had changed. It was all lies and games again. I felt used and played again. Everything that meant so much to me was probably just another detail in some elaborate plan."
Emily eyes clouded over and Alison hated how everything she had done in the past was probably going to haunt her actions forever. She wondered if Emily would ever believe how much Alison loved her. But Alison was going to try with every breath in her body.
"None of it was a game. None of it was planned. For the first time I wasn't afraid of the way I felt about you or afraid of not being what anyone expected me to be. It was the first time that it was just me and you in that moment and the only thing on my mind was how much I loved the girl whose lips were against mine, whose arms were around me and I was happy Em."
Alison's hand moved to cup Emily's face as she spoke. "You made me happy. I had never been happier before. That night and the following morning I felt light, radiant – I guess that's what happens when you have the love of your life in your arms. When your soul finds its mate." Alison smiled softly at her Mermaid and found love looking back at her in those warm eyes that had always brimmed with love for her.
"I lost you the next day and all that light was gone. Em, I don't ever want to lose you again. I had to do this for everyone but more than anyone else I had to do this for you. I would happily die today but I couldn't live a second if I knew that something happened to you because my brother had it out for us."
"Nothing is going to happen Ali, not if we do this together. We will keep each other safe. I don't care if you do not want anyone else there but I can't leave you to do this all by yourself. Not now. No."
Alison wasn't happy about it but the look on Emily's face told her that any further argument on the topic would be pointless. She sighed and nodded and found Emily break out into a broad smile. Alison shook her head and smiled back, at least something good came out of this. She hadn't seen that smile in ages!
"Do you ever wish we had more than just made out that night?" Emily asked with a giggle, much to Alison's surprise.
"Where did that come from?" Alison responded with a shy smile and then went on more earnestly. "I'm glad we didn't though. It would have been impulsive and then the next day you might have repented it. I want our first time to be about love and certainty and about 'forever'."
"That's true but then you are my forever, Ali. You always have been. Anyway, what's wrong with impulsive?" she asked with a smirk, holding the ends of Alison's hair with both hands and gently pulling her towards her. "Impulsive is exciting and edgy. Impulsive is good."
Alison's face was almost an inch away now and Emily leaned over and pecked the tip of her nose before attacking her lips hungrily. "Can… we… con... ti… nue … where… we... left... off..." she gasped, between frantically trying to suck at Alison's now swollen lower lip.
Alison wanted to just give in and let Emily have her way with her but she knew they couldn't. Not here; not like this. If they wanted a chance at forever they needed to fight for that chance tonight. So she sighed and pulled away to look at Emily, "We can't love. We have to go."
Emily sighed and nodded. Of course they couldn't right now. But a lifetime with Alison was worth the wait. Today they had to fight the fight of their lives, for their friends and for each other and Emily was ready.
The rain was a little more than a drizzle now but the lightening and thunder continued, promising more heavy showers soon. They had to find their way to the old paper mill before the clouds made good on their promise.
Alison looked at Emily, who gave her a reassuring nod. "We got this," she said taking Alison's hand in her own.
"I love you," Alison mouthed, saying nothing aloud.
"I'll tell you if I love you when you are home in my arms. So make sure to stay safe if you want to hear me say it," Emily shrugged before bringing Alison's hand that was in her own to her lips.
Alison turned on the engine. She was definitely going home to the safety of her Mermaid's arms around her and to hear her say she loved her.
So…. That's my version of the talk. What did you think? Leave me a review telling me what you think and any other requests for one-shots, if you want any. I'll be glad to write them. Bye for now.