A/N: In terms of structure, this one darts all over the place, but it ends around the finale. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read and review. There are mentions of Maya and Paige.
Are You Free or are You Tied Up?
In your eyes I see the eyes of somebody
I knew before, long ago,
But I'm still trying to make my mind up
Am I free or am I tied up?
- Miike Snow, 'Animal'
Emily is thirteen when she has a best friend, whom she almost thinks of as a sister. Just almost; there's a part of Alison DeLaurentis that is always concealed under a coat of shiny, cherry lip-gloss.
But Ali's companionship is enough for her. (For now.)
One day, when she and Spencer are playing tennis at the club under Melissa's watchful gaze, and they're discussing their oh-so dramatic love lives (Aria's crush on Noel, everyone's crush on Ali) and Spencer casually mentions in a flippant way – she knew you first, you should know, in reply to Emily's question of whom Ali might be interested in.
It's the small smile she feels fleeting across her face that informs her that she's probably more satisfied with that response than she probably should be. Probably.
Give her a few years and she will understand there was nothing probable about them.
Emily gets a lot more of something the others don't; Ali's attention.
Emily watches Ali smile in her direction for a few seconds longer this morning at school and because she's fifteen and completely "crushed-out", she grins like a fool back.
"I don't know who this guy is that has you actually smiling, Em, but you can rest assured I'll find out." A wicked grin; a skipped heartbeat.
Every single time.
At this stage in their not-so-serious game, they begin to define their roles – or at least, Ali does. It's clear who the queen-bee is, and the rest follow.
And every Queen needs a confidante.
Looking back, Emily will regret Ali's choice. After all, Emily couldn't help herself.
Still fifteen, still stupid, and still never been kissed, Emily wonders what exactly it is she's waiting for.
(Still fifteen, still stupid, still so paralyzed by how scared she is of knowing exactly what she wants.
When she returns from lacrosse practice that evening, she flops onto her bed, exasperated. She wasn't focused today; Spencer was running circles around her and of course, loving every minute of it.
It's why Emily thinks she's friends with Aria and Hanna; someone to just chill with, someone to laugh with. (Don't ask her about Ali; she doesn't quite know why they're friends.)
And she doesn't quite know why she wants so much more than that.
Ali has Great Expectations in her hands when Emily has Great Expectations in her heart.
Emily's vocabulary isn't extensive enough at this point to find any word for the feeling she gets when Ali lets her lips meet hers. And she's sure that if there even was a word, it wouldn't be enough.
When she is sixteen, she will regret all of them.
The day they learn of her disappearance, Emily feels like doing some disappearing of her own. (Her vanishing act is strangely longer than the others.)
Aria and Hanna arrive at her door, there's tears and confusion and when Spencer makes it over, a Why the hell would she do this? And Hanna's usual snark is gone along with Ali's gleaming curls and Aria, as always, appears distracted.
They're kids, just kids, and this is beyond them.
It's the day when Emily realises that she's not just crying because Ali is gone; her tears are there because Ali was always beyond her.
Once, she removes the bracelet Ali gave her.
And it's only once.
When she glances at it, lying on her dresser, it looks like a limb torn off.
Emily is sixteen when she sees how peaceful Maya is when she's sleeping; letting a hand fall on Emily's arm. It's delicate, and Emily likes her. She can relax around her. It's comfortable and peaceful. It's everything she needs right now.
But not everything she wants.
Sometimes, she lets her mind wander to the time when (if, it's never definite with Ali, she knows) she comes back. A place where they could see one another again. She's not religious in the slightest, though her parents don't know they've failed in this (they don't know a lot, Emily thinks). She doesn't know what could be up there, doesn't know how she got here, but she does know that there's a possibility that she just may not get over this girl.
She learns why everyone believes in that cliché, that first love is forever. It's just the truth, and most of the time that's harder than pretending that you've found something more exhilarating ever since that person.
Ali took Emily's red heart out into a black and white world and now all colours pale in comparison.
When they were fourteen, Emily learned that Ali was a complete nightmare in bed. She was restless, rolling around in twisted sheets, twisted limbs, and in the mornings after their sleepovers they'd end up in some sort of web, one way or another.
Emily doesn't like having to shove Ali away, even if her face is covered by blonde curtains or if her head is crushing her shoulder or whatever. (And it's not like that, she thinks, it's not that I'm disappointed.)
One morning, after Aria's fifteenth birthday party, Ali shifts so that Emily's lips meet hers for the second time, the last time, and they stay there for seconds, minutes, always, and Emily can't help but feel that she won in some small way when Ali wakes up blushing.
When Maya leaves, Emily isn't anything resembling heartbroken.
Hanna detects this.
"I know you really liked her," she says once, when it's just them sitting at lunch before their brunette counterparts arrive. "But you'll get over this, Em."
She doesn't miss Hanna's small, sad, smile. She knows what the blonde is thinking, that this time, it's different.
She wonders if she will let anyone have that kind of hold on her again. She felt some kind of protective armour lock itself around her when Ali left, she thinks, but she doesn't say this to Hanna, who is so obviously broken since Caleb left.
Emily was always guarded; Ali was the only one who really got past her. Now that she's all tied up in some red-head, evil, competitive package of Paige he doesn't want her friends to be closed off again, just because she is.
Paige finds a way to reach Emily anyway.
"You like ballsy women!"
And Emily can't deny her that, and Paige proves how undeniable she is when she drags her up to sing to Pink and Emily kind of hesitates at the lyrics I'm alright, I'm just fine, and for reasons unknown to herself, she's reminded of that time when Ali was in one of her mood at one of Sean's parties and Emily tilted her head back, too much entranced to be embarrassed at the fact that she was watching Ali do something that only could loosely be termed dancing, and Ali extended her hand to her, and Emily thinks she let Ali take everything in that one act of friendship.
Whenever Emily and her friends feel closer to finding A and their answers, something sweeps the playing field to completely reverse the roles.
The small moment she and Ali shared become the biggest clues; You're the only one who understands me, Emily recalls that confidential, calm tone Ali had when she said that. Confidential, yet surprisingly devoid of scandal. She had sounded earnest, at the time.
And Emily was all too willing to believe her.
For the first time, when she and her friends step out of a church wondering what the hell has just happened, she hates herself for letting Ali make her fall in love. There wasn't a lot to understand; Ali was someone who could make anyone her victim, and Emily was no exception.
Exactly a week after she kissed her friend in the locker room, Emily finds herself there with Ali again after a less than friendly lacrosse game. All was forgiven, of course, but the bruise left from that failed seduction still hasn't faded completely.
Emily has never been embarrassed by Ali before. Sure, the blonde seized the opportunity to talk too much about kissing and boys and crushes and who do you want to kiss, Em? But Emily was one of the few to receive some mercy from her.
She feels herself dress quickly and leave in silence; what she doesn't see is Ali, who is quite literally left open mouthed until Spencer asks what's wrong.
"Nothing...I'm flawless." She says to Spencer, just because she can, and she's pretty sure that Spencer, despite the cynical little look on her face, at least half believes her, because almost everyone does.
That evening, Emily picks up her phone to hear Ali say, "You don't play fair, Em."
"Look who's talking."
"I see you're feeling super-sassy today, then," she continues, dropping her playful tone. "You know, I thought you were going to shove me against the lockers when that game ended today. What's up?"
"It's...it's nothing, Ali." Emily says, looking outside her window, feeling the weight of everything.
"You never said anything to me or Spence afterwards." Ali counters.
"Neither did you," Emily replies, "since when are you so shy?"
"Since never," Ali grins (it's the first time she has smiled all day.) "You should probably stop kissing me so much, Em," Ali says in a way that lets Emily know that it's okay if she never stops, "it's becoming less...scandalous. I guess I kinda miss the days when we'd shock everyone when Sean dared us to kiss at every single one of his parties."
Emily knows that's all Ali really wants; is scandal, shock and evil smiles. But she can't stop herself from blushing, from playing along. "I'm sorry for being super-sassy today. Want to come over?"
"Oh I always knew you weren't that shy, Emily Fields is making a booty-call!" Ali responds in laughter, but then Emily sees golden shimmering at the edge of her window. "It's about time, I'm outside."
There's no Aria, no Hanna, no Spencer with her. It's just Emily and Alison, alone and together.
"So, who's booting calling whom?" Emily replies, and when Ali cracks open her bedroom door, they're both silenced for the right reasons.
The next morning Emily wipes off red lip-gloss and Ali is gone, sheets twisted, her bracelet left beside Emily's on the dresser as she catches the snow globe in her peripheral vision.