AN: Short one-shot, set around the finale of season 2, with slight adjustements (Ezra's and Toby's return.)
Femmeslash, and my first venture into fanfiction for a long time. Enjoy!
Mona
That Mona figures it out is the moment that ruins the first round, the first match that should still be played. She's in the middle of her fight with Spencer and she should be concentrating on that, but when Spencer's attention wavers, she's irritated. She sees the mixture out of worry, concern and it takes her a moment to place love, and then Aria is running towards them at high speed, followed by Emily and Hannah and the same expression is reflected in her eyes.
And then Mona figures it out, places the look in Spencer's eyes and she's surprised, because they never knew this. But then Spencer manages to twist their position's, and it all just took a moment too long.
She stumbles and falls and falls and as she collapses onto the ground, all she feels like is laughing, because she can't quite believe she missed this.
Jason
He remembers when he told her "we're made the same, you and I". He didn't mean it this way, but he can't very well rescind the statement only because it's proven to be far too true. He always thought he might stand a chance, because in Rosewood, affairs between teacher and students normally don't last. He's a patient guy. No one stands a chance against Spencer Hastings though, once she's decided she wants something.
He figures it out pretty fast, because Spencer has never been that hard to read once you know what to look for. He does. He sees it in the mirror every single day.
They're both there when he walks into the Hastings house. He is early, earlier then they arranged, but it's only a quick trip across the yard and he's learned that there's seldom harm in catching people of guard a bit. She's standing in the kitchen when he comes down, pouring coffee into two cups. There's no car in the driveway apart from hers, so when he look at the two cups he feels obliged to ask "should I come back later?"
She smiles and shakes her head. She's in a good mood. "It's just Aria," she says. "Do you want some as well?"
He nods his assent and she hands him a well-filled mug. "You make good coffee," he compliments after the first taste.
"Honestly?" A voice says from behind him. She's standing there wrapped in a bathrobe. "You guys share the same coffee-colored blood. I can't believe it."
"I thought you'd still be asleep," Spencer says.
"Coffee smell woke me up." They're almost ignoring him by now, but those girls have always been tight.
"This one's yours," Spencer says, handing over a much smaller cup and he sees that there are not one, but two pots of coffee on the counter. He's made coffee different from his personal blend of four spoons for each cup for exactly one person in his life so far, for Cece. He'd loved her, at the time. He scans them, still standing and facing each other, and within seconds, one thing has turned into a million telltale sign from the slight, gentle smile on Spencer's face to the way they seem to be caught up in their own world.
Then, she turns back around to him. "I'll get the money," she tells him, reaching back for her own cup and all he says is "oh".
She used to be the girl of his dreams. He knows he might have created an ideal version of her in his head, but honestly, what's not amazing about Aria Montgomery? This is the only person he might bear losing her to, but he wished he would have known there was a battle to be fought. They turn towards him with questioning gazes.
He shakes his head. "I was just thinking about something else. Keep the money, Spencer, that's all I came to say." Secrets always come at a price. She's his sister, and no matter how strange that thought is sometimes, he doesn't want her not to be able to pay if she ever has to.
Ella
She's grateful for so many reasons when she finds out, she doesn't even care that Aria never told her. Some of them are good reasons, motherly, others are a little more egoistical. Either way, she's glad.
She can't sleep some nights these days, after Mona Vanderwaal tried to kill her daughter and because she sometimes still can't believe it's over, or that it happened. Besides, Aria has been shady lately, and she's scared she might be sneaking around with Ezra Fitz again. She's having a sleep-over with the girls tonight, though, so at least for one night she actually knows what her daughter is doing. Still, Mike is not all that much better some days and she's a mother, she can't help but worry.
So when Byron is soundly snoring next to her, she wanders down to the kitchen for a glass of water. She thinks about Aria on the way. She used to think she was a liberal parent, but she can't get over the fact that he was a teacher, and no matter how old her daughter may seem sometimes, life just doesn't work that way. There's too many issues, she thinks, it feels too wrong.
She's irritated at the dim light originating from the kitchen. Maybe she forgot to turn it off. For a moment, she thinks she might still be asleep because the sight she's faced with is not something she expected or ever foresaw. She just stands there for what feels like forever, her scrambled brain trying to make sense of this, of her daughter pressed up against the fridge and kissing Spencer Hastings.
She takes a deep breath. They're not kids anymore, mature and tried young women instead of two girls with pink hair and awkward v-necks. It's not like she can just march in there.
Then, she smiles. Her daughter might never be easy and she was never quite prepared for the whole finding-your-supposedly-straight-daugter-making-out-with-her-best-friend-against-your-fridge-afer-you've-sanctioned-thousands-of-sleepovers. She wonders briefly if Pam ever suspected something about Emily, back then, or if she was just as surprised.
However, it definitely tops the whole your-underage-daughter-is-dating-her-teacher thing and as the first wave of shocks subside, she finds herself smiling.
Mostly because Aria has been happy these last few weeks and if she's not seeing Fitz again, then Spencer's at fault for it, and Aria has truly been very happy those last weeks. Besides she's known Spencer for years, and she is the kind of person you want your child to be dating: smart, well-mannered, loyal and protective, kind. Plus, the whole same-age thing is a definite bonus. They'll have to discuss grandchildren at some point in the future though, because she's not making any concessions there.
She should be more shocked, more aghast, but mostly she's just relieved. It could be so much worse than this. It makes her feel like a better person, that she can be liberal and open-minded about this in a way she never was about Fitz. She might not be that horrible after all. And as Spencer leans back, brushing a soft kiss across her daughter's temple, she retreats carefully back upstairs.
She'd always, always feared that an older, gorgeous, world-travelled man would hurt her daughter, no matter how much older than her age she may appear. And she knows, simply knows, that with Spencer that's something she'll never have to worry about.
The next morning, she rescinds the rest of the restrictions they'd placed on Aria, and tells Byron to stop worrying with a soft smile. When they have a dinner invitation again, she places the Hastings on the list of people to invite, even if they're not normally all that close. It turns out to be a lovely evening though.
The next week, when she comes home, there's a three layered chocolate cake and Aria declaring that "she felt like baking". Her family hasn't felt more whole in a long time.
Emily
In the beginning, the first time something makes her look and consider, she deems it as normal, and feels acute relief. This is just the way friends are, lingering touches, and soft smiles, and lasting kisses on the cheek. It's completely normal; they are best friends, just like her and Ali. Besides, no one else ever seems to notice or to care, and Ali's talent for pinpointing certain things is certainly not going to be surpassed by her, so she really is just imaging things- which probably makes her even crazier than she already feels.
She forgets about the things she's imagined, because that's what it is, after everything happens and everything goes to hell. They have much more pressing problems to worry about after all, and she's no longer written this whole thing of as a figment of her imagination.
And as she's more or less scrambling out of the closet, caught between Maya and Paige and then Samara, Ezra happens and Spencer develops a thing for strangely inappropriate guys.
The first memory flickers up again when Ezra takes the job in New Orleans and Toby disappears. Not at first, of course, but after two weeks of sleepovers and Spencer's refusal to go home, she thinks about a time when she thought that there was something strange between them.
It was nothing but an impression of a shy, self-confident girl back then and though she's changed a lot, she still considers this particular theory silly.
One night, when she's finishing up the last part of her homework, Hannah flops down on her bed. "Scoot over, Em". She does, because there is no arguing with the blonde when she's like this, and resigns to finishing the rest of her work tomorrow.
There's silence for almost a minute, which is highly unusual for the otherwise loud and flighty girl. "I've been meaning to ask you," she begins "this whole gaydar thing? How does it work? Do people, like, bling for you?"
She stares for several uncomfortable seconds. She's become used to the nosy questions, but this is Hannah, who's never been anything but supportive, and because she remembers and now you're Emily dating Maya- we love Emily-, she cuts down on possible acidic comments. "Well, I didn't figure out Paige was gay until she kissed me in my car, so I'm not sure I'm highly accurate. What brought this on?"
The situation has somehow managed to turn beyond awkward now, simply because Hannah looks so unsure of herself.
"I was just curious- if you'd ever gotten a bling from anyone we know."
"Okay, Han, it's never a bling." She actually considers the questions then, waits and breathes and puts together the increased level of awkwardness they have here with who of the people they know could be gay, and well, fuck (she never curses). Her face must show something, because Hannah's shifting up on the bed kneeling down and facing her.
They stare at each other, almost like this is a conversation about them, which it isn't, because Hannah is in love with Caleb and like her sister and then Emily breaks the silence. "There are people about whom I've wondered sometimes, but that might just be my personal craziness."
"I don't think you're a crazy person, Em."
"This would be a great point for some am I thinking what you're thinking."
"Except if my theory wasn't right and I said it out loud, it would be really, really weird."
"Crazy levels of weird", Emily offers. "And completely not our business."
"So?"
She mulls the question, then slightly smiles. "So you can let me get back to my homework, and we'll simply both agree that we have crazy theories about who people could be involved with, and we'll leave it at that until we know anything or anyone asks us for help."
Hannah goes back to redoing her eye shadow for her late-night date with Caleb. Emily goes back to trigonometry, part II.
Jenna
Jenna is good at reading people. However, it's not until she sees again that she understands how much she missed due to her lack of eyesight. Those small gazes between people are invisible even to most who can see. And yet, even she missed it. As her gaze wanders carefully, without ever revealing too much, around the room in the days after Mona's descent, she sees that no one seems to know. Incredible, almost, that this is the one secret those little liars managed to keep.
She laughs when she puts the pieces together in the middle of class, when she noticed the shy smile and the gentle blush, but when she tells the teacher to go on he does, because people are scare of Jenna Cavanaugh.
Toby wants the other girl so desperately, but by the looks of this, his chances are far slimmer than she had thought. And so, for the first time, she allies herself with them and keeps their secret without a single word. It's not in her interest that the team decides to end them- and above everything, even higher than revenge, stand her own interests.
So she smiles, and stays silent. Just this once.
Hannah
So her world is pretty clearly defined when she grows up. The prince fights for the princess and then they marry and life happily ever after. By the time of the divorce, she's figured out it doesn't always stay that way. When she gets the pictures of Emily kissing Maya, she adds a new category into her world, because Em is amazing and a great friend and no judgment. Besides, they're amazingly cute together.
Around the time where she learns that most of the time, princesses have to fight their own battle or save their stupid boyfriends who can't keep their laptop's safe from evil machinations, she's adding a category for pretty girls who like screwing with people. It's made up of Ali, and later on she'll add Mona, who was always just a little bit flirty, too.
She still lives for a good love story though, and no matter how happy she is, she wants her friends to be too. Aria and Ezra and Spencer and Toby definitely have the potential of making it work.
But then Ezra and Toby disappear and they hold each other together in the aftermath of the Mona-thing and the Maya-thing, but sometimes they're a little bit too happy. She's Hannah Marin, and she knows relationships- and Spencer smiles occasionally these days.
She notices little things, and she sees some things, so yeah, she wonders. She talks to Emily once, because if all gay people have a gaydar, she should know, right? Afterwards, she at least knows that if she's crazy, she's not the only one.
So considering all the thoughts she had on the subjects, it probably wasn't her smartest move to just walk into the barn where Spencer now lives, after Melissa has moved to Philly for good.
She covers her eyes with her hands because seeing her friends naked while trying on dresses is different from this, but she can't quite suppress out the urge to call out "I knew it". (And okay, maybe that was a bit loud.)
There's a lot of movement but she's definitely not looking, not even at Spence's mortified oh God and Aria's Hannah.
"What did you know?" Emily's voice asks behind her before she too spins around.
"See, we were right," Hannah grins.
"No, I am not seeing anything at all," and then Emily's grabbing her arm and pulling her out and says "we'll be in the kitchen, guys."
"We so were right", she points out to Emily on the way. "Hah."
Emily pulls her into the kitchen, checking quickly for Mr and Mrs Hastings and when she sees the house is empty she says "listen, Han, you were great when I came out. So how about you go back to that nice, supportive less righteous persona."
"I'm just happy, Em," she explains. "The whole Fitz thing was always just way too doomed, and Spencer only ever dates completely inappropriate men, so unless Aria's dating Melissa at the same time, this is like a huge improvement. She obviously has much better taste in women."
"I'm not dating Melissa, but thank you Han," Aria says from the doorway, where she and Spencer are standing and kind of awkwardly holding hands.
She points at them before turning to Emily. "See. Way cuter, too. And I was right."
"Yes." Emily says with an eye roll. "And we'll get you a t-shirt that says so. And you can get me one that says I'm amazing, because I have pizza in my car, and you can go get it." She tosses over her keys and Hannah takes them.
She waits outside the kitchen door and listens to the conversation, of course. "Seriously, we're very happy for you guys", Emily is telling them. "And we should probably pick a movie before she comes back and decides that you're our romantic love story tonight."
She walks outside, because they can try all they want, but she'll just talk to Aria tomorrow, and she'll spill. So there.
Reviews are appeciated :)