Disclaimer: I used the song How you learn to live alone by Jonathan Jackson. All the rights to the song go to Jonathan Jackson and/or Nashville (the tv show in which he sang the song). I don't own any of the characters and most likely anything else you recognize. All rights go to ABC family and whoever else owns it.
Author's Note: This is an AU. It goes AU after the girls get rescued from the bunker. There are some spoilers for the second half of season 6, but not many. The timeline also isn't the same, the girls have like a whole year of school left after being rescued from the bunker in this story.
Warnings: mentions of bullying, mentions of torture (I think that's it, if you read anything else that you think might need a warning, please let me know so that I can add it.)
Characters: Hanna Marin, mentioned: Ashley Marin, Tom Marin, Caleb Rivers, Aria Montgomery, Spencer Hastings, Emily Fields, Alison DiLaurentis, Cece Drake/Charlotte DiLaurentis, Mona Vanderwaal, A, Sara Harvey, Lucas Gottesman, Sean Ackard, Lorenzo Calderon, OC's (a lot of characters are mentioned)
And finally the actual story:
Learn to live alone
They ask her sometimes, how you learn to live alone. They know she lives alone. They don't know how much she lost. How much she had to learn to get where she is now. She always tells them the same thing.
First you fall
And fall she did. She went through a lot, more than the others realize. She went through bullying even before she met Allison. She went through Allison's torture and through her parents' fighting. And then Allison disappeared and her dad left. She lost who she was, became friends with Mona and changed completely. She went through A's virtual stalking and bullying, through the betrayal and hurt of finding out her best friend was A. And still A wouldn't stop. She went through realizing her friends don't trust her, went through getting rejected by her own father. She realized the actual meaning of the word torture, they all did.
And then you fly
When they got out, she wanted her life back to normal as soon as possible. She did all she could to make sure it would. She went to therapy, a lot of it. Went back to school before any of the others. Suffered through the stares and whispers behind her back, because she needed a scholarship and was going to fight for one. She started getting her life back together, piece by piece.
And you believe that you belong up in the sky
But she's alone. Her mother doesn't know how not to say the wrong thing and has opted for saying nothing because of it. Her father still won't pay for her further schooling and she's refusing to speak with him because of it. Caleb followed her and spied on her and she can't handle that, she needs her freedom after having her every move followed by A and after being locked up in that bunker. She doesn't really speak with the girls anymore. She believes the three of them are still friends, but every time she sees them, she's reminded of all the worst parts of her life and she needs to move on. She hasn't been able to trust Mona since she found out she was A at the beginning, and not even their shared experience in the bunker was able to change that. She's definitely not speaking to Allison, refuses to be in the same room as her, unless it's absolutely necessary. She's still angry with the girls and with her mother for forcing her to spend time with Allison when Allison had just returned.
She's alone. And sometimes, when she's just had a panic attack or can't fall asleep, she'll look at the stars and wonder if she doesn't belong up in the sky. She wonders if it wouldn't be better for everyone.
Flap your arms as you run
When her father left and Allison disappeared, Mona picked up the pieces. This time, she's picking them up herself. She's picking them up by focusing on her schoolwork, by learning how to fight, because Aria did have the right idea there. She's picking them up by flapping her arms and running out of fucking Rosewood.
Every revelation brings you closer to the sun
And every time she gets an good grade, every time she's able to beat her fighting instructor, every time she sends out a college application, every time she realizes it doesn't mater what other people think about her, every time she manages to eat something unhealthy without feeling guilty or the urge to puke it up, she's one step closer to her goal. She's one step closer to getting out of the place that holds all her worst memories and one step closer to living a healthy, normal life, which is all she really wants.
You fall asleep in motion
She can't sleep. She can't stay awake. Every time she closes her eyes, she wakes up screaming. She sees blood and walls behind windows, walls behind doors. She feels pain, so much pain, and she feels guilt. The guilt is the worst part, and every time she sees Spencer, Emily or Aria it worsens, threatens to swallow her whole.
She falls asleep everywhere, because she's just so damn tired.
And uncharted hemispheres
They all cope a different way. It's an uncharted hemisphere for all of them and no one knows the right way to deal with it.
Aria has taken up photography and just being outside, being able to breath. Every time she sees Aria somewhere inside, Aria is sitting next to an open window, no matter how cold it is outside.
Spencer has taken up drugs, which isn't the right solution, but she does understand it. Her therapist is helping her and so are her goals, but if she didn't have those, she would take up drugs as well. She would give almost anything just to have a full night of dreamless sleep, she understands why Spencer takes drugs for it.
Emily has taken up Sara Harvey. She couldn't do it, needs to focus on herself. But Emily puts all her time and attention in Sara Harvey for the same reason she puts it in school. To feel normal, to not feel broken.
She tries not to notice what Allison does with her time, but can't help but see it. Allison goes to church, tries to get redemption. She can't help but laugh whenever she thinks about it, nothing Allison could ever do would make her a good person. Allison spends her time visiting Cece, trying to bond with her. It only makes her hate Allison more, because Cece, Charlotte, Charles, A doesn't deserve any love or sympathy. She heard Cece's story and she doesn't care, forces herself not to feel even the slightest bit of sympathy. Cece made her life a literal hell, tortured her, and Cece's reply to it all was that none of them were actually dead.
Mona and her mom left town. She thinks they had the right idea and whishes she was able to leave to. She's reminded of how similar they are and why they were once best friends. She can't help but miss her, no matter how much she doesn't want to.
And you wake up with the stars
She wakes up in the middle of the night and goes outside. She feels the cold air on her skin, sees the stars up above, sees the absence of a fence and feels save. She falls asleep lying in the grass.
Falling down around your ears
She gets her first rejection letter and it feels like the world falls down around her. She has a panic attack, a breakdown and her first big setback. Her therapist says it's a part of the healing process. She can't help but feel fear. All the rejection letters after that worsen it, make her realize the plan she had since she was first released from the hospital might not come true.
And when they hit the ground
She gets acceptance letters too, but none offer her a scholarship. It makes her hate her father so much more. It worsens her hate for Allison and Mona and most of all for Cece. Without them, she wouldn't mind as much. But now she needs to get out. When Allison approaches her and jokingly calls her Hefty Hanna, she slaps Allison and feels satisfaction when she hits the ground.
They're nothing but stones
She realized that everyone in Rosewood was a stone keeping her down when she was in the bunker. She vowed that if she ever got out, she would prove them wrong. She would stop caring what others thought and said. She would show them that she wasn't an idiot and she would actually enjoy eating again. It doesn't always work, but she's trying very hard to keep her vow.
That's how you learn to live alone
The first time she feels like she might be able to live life alone, is when she gets the letter that cements her future. It's not the best school and Spencer would probably look down on it, but she doesn't care, because they gave her a full ride and she's able to go to college and leave Rosewood.
Bit by bit, you slip away
She's remade herself so often over the years that she doesn't remember who she used to be, before she started caring what other people thought. She remade herself to try and win her father's approval, though she never quite managed that. She remade herself when she became friends with Allison. Remade herself when Allison disappeared, her dad left and she became friends with Mona. And again when Allison came back. She didn't remake herself after that, but she knows the bunker changed her.
You lose yourself in pieces in the things you don't say
She tries not to lose herself in college, tries to become herself again. She's not keeping quiet anymore. She's saying every thing that's on her mind, without being mean to anyone. She doesn't lie anymore, not even little white lies. She is actually making friends without hiding a part of herself.
She's trying to prove everyone back home wrong. Trying to prove to her dad that she's more than just a pretty face and can succeed in college, in live. Trying to prove to her old friends that she's not stupid. Trying to prove to Mona that she does remember who she used to be, or at the very least can figure it out. Trying to prove to Allison and Cece that they haven't broken her, that Allison's words and Cece's torture didn't define her, even though the first still play in her head and she still wakes up screaming because of the latter. But she's also trying to prove Mona right, she is smarter than she pretended to be in high school.
You're not here, but you're still there
The old her, the fake her, isn't at college, isn't welcome there. But she's still there underneath it all. She still cares what people think, still dumbs herself down sometimes, pukes up her food sometimes. She still has panic attacks and nightmares and sleepless nights. She can't stand to be in a small, enclosed space, takes the stairs to her dorm even though it's on the top floor.
The sun goes up, the sun goes down
Days pass without her realizing it and soon enough it's the holidays. Every one of her new friends is going home. She just hopes time goes as fast during the holidays as it goes during the school term.
But you're not sure that you care
Her friends bug her about going home for the holidays, talk about how her family must miss her so much, and her old friends, and wouldn't it be nice to catch up. Her better friends talk about how nice it'll be to rub how well she's doing into the faces of all the people back home. She's not sure she really cares about either. She knows she doesn't want to catch up with anyone she knew in Rosewood. She doesn't really care if they want to catch up with her and tries not to feel guilty about that. She does enjoy the idea of rubbing it into their faces, but she doesn't think the reality will live up to it. Besides, she's not planning on ever going back to Rosewood.
You live inside the false
She keeps that plan until the court forces her to return. She rips up Allison's letter and then burns the pieces. She doesn't meet with her old friends in the Brew and doesn't meet up with Allison in the school either. She doesn't care what Allison has to say.
Her old friends text her that she can't keep living in the false, can't pretend that they don't exist and that what happened didn't really happen.
Until you don't recognize the truth
They're wrong. She doesn't pretend. She knows what happened and knows she was once best friends with these four girls. But she moved on, and while she's still suffering from what happened, she managed to leave her past behind her. She's back in Rosewood because the court forced her to, but she won't let Allison or Aria or Spencer or Emily suck her back into all the drama and back into fearing her own shadow.
People send you pictures and you can't believe it's you
While she's home, she goes through all the stuff she left behind. She throws most of the pictures out, but she also keeps some. She finds pictures of herself with her dad and her mom, one big happy family. Pictures of herself with Allison, Aria, Spencer and Emily. She notices that, while they were all smiling, she looked uncomfortable in most of them. She finds pictures of herself with Mona, she's genuinely happy in them and feels a stab of pain, because that was probably her first real friendship and Mona burned it down in the most painful way possible. She sees pictures of herself with Sean, with Lucas and with Caleb, and misses the time when she was still with Sean and her biggest problem was that he wouldn't sleep with her. She sees pictures of her with Aria, Spencer and Emily. She doesn't know how to feel about those.
But while she sees all these pictures, she realizes she isn't in any of them, not really. And she's happy about that, because in most of the pictures she found, she wasn't really herself and she is now. She's happy with her new life and can't wait to go back to it.
And it's been years since your house has felt like home
She isn't happy about staying in her mother's house, but she can't afford a hotel and she's planning on having all her stuff sorted out when she leaves, so that she never has to come back again.
While the others are catching up and being convinced to lie on the stand, she cleans her room and sorts through all her boxes filled with stuff. She's actually glad when the day of the hearing is there, because it means she gets to leave soon. Her nightmares are worse here than they were at school. She realizes this house hasn't really been a home since the day her dad met his new wife.
That's how you learn to live alone
She doesn't lie on the stand, she tells the judges she's still scared of Charlotte. She's surprised Allison convinced the others to lie. Charlotte gets released. She goes to a bar and gets drunk. Lorenzo is there and they talk all night until he drops her off at home. When she hears Charlotte was killed, she feels happy and like a weight is lifted of her, a weight she had been carrying around for years. She's also the only one of the girls with a solid alibi.
She decides to stay for the funeral. Allison isn't happy to see her there, but she needs to know Cece's really dead. Lorenzo sits next to her. They talk and exchange numbers. She knows they won't get together, not while he still works in Rosewood. But as long as he's fine with travelling to her when he wants to see her, she's not saying no to a new friend.
While the other girls are being told they can't leave Rosewood, she travels home. She's never been so happy that she decided to live alone and that she didn't get sucked back into Allison like the other three girls.
It doesn't feel right, but it's not wrong
When she graduates, it doesn't feel right, but she knows it's not wrong either. The only person from Rosewood who is at her graduation is Lorenzo. She's glad.
It's just hard to start again this far along
It's hard saying goodbye, it's even harder to start again in a different place. She's glad she'll be in a big city, glad a few of her new friends are going to the same city, glad she got a job offer and at least has something to do that can fill her days.
Brick by brick, you let it go
It's harder than she thought it would be to leave the actual building. This is where she really grew up, where she became herself and where she found a home. She has tears rolling down her cheeks when she steps into Lorenzo's car.
As you walk away from everything you know
They don't talk for the first hour of their journey. Even after that, they don't talk about any of her old friends, about what happened to Charlotte, about anything that happened in Rosewood. She thinks the reason they're so close is that he knows what happened, but is okay with not talking about it. As he drives her to her new home, away from her dorms and her college experience, she's reminded of when she left high school, when she left Rosewood. It feels much more painful to leave this time.
When her friends ask her how she learned to live alone, she always answers the same thing.
When you release resistance
When you stop trying to keep things together, when you stop trying to hang on to old friendships and old relationships…
And you lean into the wind
And you accept what happened and try to live your life accordingly.
Until the roof begins to crumble
Until all your plans break down.
And the rain comes pouring in
And you have a breakdown.
And you sit there in the rubble
And you look at what you have now.
Till the rubble feels like home
Until you realize that what you have now is so much better.
That's how you learn to live alone
She has been trying to live alone for so long now, but the first time she felt like she succeeded, she wasn't alone anymore. She had new friends and a new home, because for her the most important thing wasn't learning how to live alone, but learning how to let go of toxic relationships and bad memories and learning how to be herself and happy and how to make new friends.
And while she stares at the walls of her new apartment, she knows she has succeeded in that.
That's how you learn to live alone
Author's note: I hope you all liked the story. Please leave a comment if you did.