Hi guys!

So here's the first chapter of the story I was talking about. I wasn't planning on posting it just yet, or even writing it yet for that matter, until I finished On the Run, but this got into my head yesterday and wouldn't let me go until I wrote it out. Now that I got it out of the way I can get back to writing the next chapter for my other story.

Hope you guys like it! Please let me know what you think! :)

Enjoy! xoxo

8:17am.

Crap.

I ran up those last few steps to Emily's house and rang the doorbell, cursing both myself for not getting my lazy ass out of bed when the alarm went off and the weather for being so unnaturally cold for fall. We were half way through November and it was already one of the coldest freaking winters we've had in years. It had yet to snow, thank God, but weather broadcasters were already predicting snowfall towards the end of their ten day forecast.

I shuddered when a strong gust of wind tore through Emily's front porch. I blew into my cupped hands before wrapping my arms around myself and rubbing my hands over my arms, adjusting the bags hanging on my forearms and praying that someone would hurry up and open the damn door – even through the long sleeves of both my dress and my coat, I could feel the cold seeping in right through to my bones.

"Alison!" Mrs. Fields finally opened the door, greeting me with a warm smile. Her eyes widened as the wind picked up again, sending a cool draft through the door. "Goodness, it's cold outside! Come in, come in. You must be freezing!"

"Sorry I'm late, Mrs. Fields." I said as she ushered me inside, sighing when warm, cozy air fanned into my face. I caught sight of the fireplace crackling softly in the living room and the air smelled sugary sweet, already reminiscent of the holidays to come. Emily's place was always the homiest out of all of our houses, a fact I was recently very thankful for since my own house was everything but these days and I found myself finding refuge here more and more often.

"Oh, it's no problem at all. In fact, I was running a little late myself. Here, I'll take these," Mrs. Fields grabbed the bags out of my hands and gestured to something behind me. "And you can put your coat and scarf over there on that rack if you want. Let me just put these here," She placed my bag on the couch as I dropped off my winter clothes by the door. I turned back to find her by my side, placing her hand on my shoulder and leading me towards the kitchen. "I have some hot chocolate for you girls in the kitchen. I thought it might come in handy with this weather we're having lately, plus seems it's the only thing Emily can hold down early in the mornings."

"Oh, is Emily up already?" I asked, surprised.

"I wanted to make sure she took her medicine before I left," Mrs. Fields replied, though by her tone I could guess she'd had a hard time doing so. "She's not very happy I woke her up for that but – well, you'll see in a second."

I smirked, imagining exactly how happy Emily was with being woken up at this hour, especially for medicine.

Emily had come down with what the girls and I had dubbed as the mother of all flus brought on by the mother of all cold fronts. She'd come to school on Monday looking tired and run down, complaining about not getting any sleep the night before. The other girls had immediately turned to me with suggestive eyes, since it was nothing out of the ordinary that we both arrive to school lacking sleep from any…stimulating activities we might have managed to sneak in the night before, but this time I'd sincerely had nothing to do with it.

During the day she was a wreck. She always sits in front of me during our history class – which this year is like the most boring class in the entire curriculum – and ever since I could remember, she would sit behind me in every boring class and play with my hair per my request. Only now that we're together I've gotten to sit behind her for a change and keep myself busy while our teacher blabs on. Emily loves it when I play with her hair, and normally it just keeps her in a daze while I do it, but that day it barely took five minutes of me touching her before she was out like a light. And later that day in study hall, we'd agreed to review for a chemistry test we had on Wednesday, but as soon as we sat down, she laid her head in my lap and zonked out before I could even open my text book. By the end of the day I'd had to drive her home because she could barely keep her eyes open.

Then on Tuesday she arrived late and only stayed for half the day, since she spent third period throwing up in the bathroom with Spencer holding her hair back. Her mom picked her up after that and she hasn't been to school since. I called her every single day to check up on her since I was having some serious Emily withdrawals, but on Thursday she called me instead to ask me to stop by because according to her, she missed me like crazy and was a few attempted sponge baths away from strangling her mother.

Now it was Saturday and her mom was leaving for Texas for a couple of days, so she'd asked me to take care of Emily while she was away. Well, it would be more accurate to say that Emily had insisted I be the one to stay over instead of one of her mom's old relatives. It took some coaxing, now that we were officially together and her mom knew the extent of our relationship, but after Emily begged for a solid three hours – and I know this because she had me on the phone while she did it – Mrs. Fields had finally given the okay.

We rounded the corner to the kitchen to find a sight that both warmed my heart and made it clench in sympathy. Emily was sitting on one of the stools at the counter, both hands folded out in front of her with her forehead resting on her arms, three pills and a glass of water placed by her head. By her breathing, which sounded uncomfortably congested, I could tell she wasn't fully asleep, but she was well on her way.

Mrs. Fields sighed in exasperation, taking four steps in a stride to stand over her daughter authoritatively. Leaning against the door frame, I winced to myself for what was about to happen. This wasn't going to be pretty.

"Emily," Pam shook her daughter's shoulder forcefully, startling the poor girl awake. "Take your prescriptions, I'm not leaving here until you do."

Emily groaned, only readjusting her head on her arms without looking up at her mother. "I'm sick of these pills, they're messing up my stomach."

"The pills aren't messing up your stomach, Emmy," I grinned at that nickname, knowing how much it annoyed Emily when her parents called her that. For a while I started calling her that too just to take the mickey out of her, but she'd threatened me with no sex for a week, and – well, nothing would really be worth that in the long run. "The flu is, and you're never going to get better unless you take them and unless you eat. So hurry up, you're going make me late for my flight."

"No."

Pam turned to me with a pointed look, mouthing See? as she rolled her eyes. I smiled and silently gestured for her to let me try. She gave me a nod and stepped around the counter to grab something from the cabinets over the stove as I pushed off the wall and silently padded over to my drowsy girlfriend. I had a feeling Emily had yet to realize I was there, and something told me she'd soften up once she saw me.

I placed my hand over the fingers peeking out from under her elbow and leaned down to murmur in her ear, "Take your meds, Emmy, I can't kiss you if you don't."

What would have been a sharp intake of breath came out sounding more like her trying to breathe through her clogged up nose, but I'd barely gotten my sentence out when she looked up at me with the biggest smile I'd seen on her since she'd gotten sick. It took two seconds for her brow to furrow as she realized what I'd just called her, to which I only responded with a smirk.

"Did you just call me Emmy?" she asked, and she would have succeeded in sounding vaguely threatening had she not hiccupped afterwards.

"Hi, baby." I laughed, cupping her face in my hands and kissing her forehead softly. Her cheeks felt unnaturally hot against my palms, and now that I looked closely I noticed a reddish haze tinting her skin. I turned to Pam with a worried frown. "She's really running a fever, huh."

"Of a hundred and one." Mrs. Fields replied with a nod. She was filling two mugs with steaming hot chocolate from a pan that had been standing on the stove, and she topped them off with cinnamon before pushing them towards us.

Emily reached for her mug, but I grabbed the pills from the counter and quickly pushed the pills into the palm of her hand, closing her fingers into a fist around them.

"Pills," I demanded firmly when she looked to me. Her eyes flashed in annoyance – she detested when I used that tone of voice, and honestly I did too. It reminded me a little too much of my old ways, of the person I'd vowed I'd never regress to. But I grit my teeth and stood my ground, making a note to apologize to her later. "Now."

She held my stare for a few moments, glaring daggers that, again, would have been more menacing had she not looked as tired as she did. Finally she just huffed and popped them into her mouth, downing them with one large gulp of water.

Mrs. Fields's eyebrows rose in surprise. "I'm starting to think I made the right choice by calling you, Alison."

Emily rolled her eyes as I giggled, leaning against her chair and wrapping my arm around her shoulders. "Love you, babe." I whispered, nuzzling my nose against her cheek.

She hummed her agreement nonchalantly, taking a careful sip of her mug. I pouted when she wouldn't look at me, so I grabbed her face in my hands and planted a long kiss on her cheek, finally making her smile.

A car honked outside, and Mrs. Fields looked at her watch in alarm. "Oh! That's my cab. I have to go get my bags." She wiped her hands off hastily with the dish rag and threw us a smile. "You girls finish up here, I'll be right back."

I grabbed a chair and pulled my mug towards me as Mrs. Fields rushed upstairs. The first taste of hot chocolate in my mouth had me sighing in bliss. Emily's mom always made the best hot chocolate. I remember spending winter nights over here while my parents were away on business. Mrs. Fields would always let us help bake the Christmas cookies while she made us our drinks. Then we'd sit by the fireplace and watch old Christmas specials, Emily and I dunking our cookies into each other's mugs. Even back then I'd known my relationship with Emily was special – I never did things like that with anyone else but her − but it took a good couple of years for me to understand why.

"I'm so glad you're here, Ali."

Emily was resting her head against the counter again, but she'd placed her cheek against the marble so she could look at me. She had dark circles under her eyes, her eyelids half closed with drowsiness, but even through her daze I could see relief in both her eyes and her smile.

I smiled in return, running my hand up and down her back soothingly. "There's nowhere I'd rather be, Em."

Emily snorted. "Yeah, give yourself an hour. You'll be begging to get out."

I leaned forward to press a kiss to her shoulder. "Never."

Hurried clacking of heals sounded through the kitchen before Mrs. Fields came back, two heavy bags in hand. Emily sat up, smirking as we watched her mom pat herself hastily to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything.

"I think you're good, Mom." Emily teased.

Mrs. Fields failed to pick up on her daughter's teasing as she absently nodded in agreement. "Alright, I'd better go." Rounding the kitchen counter, she placed a hand on Emily's shoulder as she turned to me. "There's a list of instructions for her medicine on the fridge as well as a few emergency numbers you can call should anything happen. I have Ashley Marin on call too, just in case you need any adult help."

Emily rolled her eyes. "Ali's not five, Mom. We'll be fine."

I bit back a laugh at Mrs. Fields's exasperated sigh. "Thanks, Mrs. Fields. I'll be sure to check the list once Emily's resting."

That seemed to calm her down, for she smiled and kissed the top of Emily's head. "Alright. I'll check in tonight to see how you're doing. I love you, sweetheart."

"Love you too, Mom."

After giving me a quick hug, Mrs. Fields adjusted her hold on her bags and ambled swiftly to the foyer. The draft that came in when she opened the front door made Emily shudder, but the relieved sigh my mermaid released had me stifling a snicker behind my hand.

"Thank God, she's gone." Emily breathed, dropping her head on to the counter again. "She's been driving me insane."

"Oh come on, she can't be that bad." I argued lightly, brushing her hair off her shoulder.

She turned her head to look at me, eyebrows raised. "My mother has been trying to give me sponge baths for the last week because she doesn't trust that I won't fall in the shower by myself, and she expects you to give me sponge baths too."

I laughed. Pam Fields was definitely something, alright. Give her a sponge bath when we have the house to ourselves? As if. Wagging my eyebrows suggestively, I trailed my index finger down her arm, raising goosebumps over her skin.

"I can give you much more than a sponge bath," I murmured softly.

Emily shuddered, her eyes fluttering as she let out a shaky breath. "I am so glad you're here."

"You know it, baby." I grinned, sliding off my stool so I could kiss her cheek.

As I took another sip of hot chocolate, I noticed Emily had barely touched hers, and when she yawned wide enough to swallow the mug whole, I realized what her body was asking for. "Wanna head back to bed?"

She nodded once, eyes half closed as she pushed herself to her feet. I grabbed her hand and led her upstairs, noticing with a pang of worry how slow and sluggish her movements were. This thing was hitting her body hard, and the cold weather was definitely not helping her.

Once we entered her bedroom, she wasted no time in heading straight to her bed and curling up under the mountain of blankets her mom had no doubt extracted from the depths of their attic. I slipped off my boots and slid in beside her, frowning when she didn't curl up to me like always.

"What are you doing?" I asked, watching her struggle to adjust her pillow comfortably.

"I don't want to get you sick," she explained. The fact that she understood what I meant without even looking at me made me smile.

I rolled my eyes, already scooting closer to her and pulling on her arm. "Don't be ridiculous." When she didn't budge, I tugged harder, throwing in a pout for good measure. "C'mere, you."

Emily sighed, her lips quirking up as if fighting back a smile. She closed the distance between us and laid her head on my chest, her arm coming up to wrap over my stomach while our legs tangled under the sheets. I instantly wrapped my arms around her, my hand going straight to her hair to run my fingers through her soft tresses.

"Mmmm, love you." she breathed sleepily.

I smiled into her hair, letting my lips press against the crown of her head. I loved spending moments like this with her, just cuddling under blankets listening to her sleep. It was always my favorite part of staying over with her. Don't get me wrong, making love to her was the highlight of every sleepover. But it was always the way we'd end up tangled in each other's arms that made my heart flutter happily just thinking about it.

"I love you too." I said. "Get some rest, sweetie."

Emily nodded into my chest, tightening her arm around me as she shifted. It barely took two minutes, but her breathing eventually evened out enough to let me know she was fast asleep.