No Longer Alone
Disclaimer: PLL belongs to lots of rich people who definitely aren't me.
Note: There are versions of this prompt/scenario running around all over tumblr and the various fanfic archives; I hope my take is just original enough to entertain you. The title is from the Duncan Sheik song "Home" which I highly recommend for Paily. Some lines borrowed from the show.
0000
Emily Fields hates that there's a name scrawled on her wrist. She hates that she woke up on her fourteenth birthday to find that name there, and she hates that she knew by age sixteen she'd never get to meet the person it belonged to. Never get to know them except from afar. Never feel that kind of deep romantic love for anyone else, because it simply wasn't possible. The name of the person that appeared on your wrist as a teen, the name you covered with a bracelet or cuff until marriage, was your soulmate and the only person you could ever truly love. It was simple fact. Everyone knew it. It was the way it had been for years.
It's not that the name on her wrist is a girl's. She's not that small minded, never has been. Even her parents, who caught a glimpse of the name when she broke down drunk and crying at sixteen, didn't seem to care so much that their daughter was one of those often thrown into the queer slums that are found in most major cities, tossed out by their families as defective for having a same-gender soulmate. The elder Fields love Emily too much to reject her for something it's plain that she can't control.
She does vaguely remember seeing her soulmate around school; they were in the same grade at Rosewood High until the whole family moved during freshman year, not long after their daughter's birthday that spring.
Nick McCullers has risen to national prominence as an advocate against the soulmate tattoos since then. Like some other preachers, he thinks it's devilry. No matter that his wife's name appeared on his wrist as a teenager too, but he started making waves, started calling for real investigation into the phenomenon when Emily was fifteen. He's on television panel discussions, he's written newspaper op-eds, he's got a coalition of conservatives whipping certain sections of the nation into a frenzy over the soulmate tattoos.
Emily Fields knows why. It's because his daughter's name is on her wrist. She sees Paige sometimes on television, standing silently behind her father at his rallies, demure and uncomfortable in the most feminine and frilly of modest dresses. Her hair is long, dyed auburn, with severely cut bangs in front. She remembers Paige being lithe and muscular even with the last of her baby fat at fourteen, a fierce member of the swim and field hockey teams, but the Paige she sees on TV is soft – obviously no longer allowed to do something so unwomanly as exercise.
As the years go by, a tall, thin, dark-haired boy in a suit that makes him look like a child playing dress-up often stands at Paige's side during these events, shoulders bowed even as his back is ramrod straight. Emily imagines the name on his wrist is something like Robert or Dante or Miguel, as he's introduced during one of Nick McCullers' ranting speeches as his daughter's fiancé.
The conservative media coverage of Paige's wedding – billed as a Godly contrast to the demonic illegal joinings of those people in the nation's homosexual slums – is frothing at the mouth enthusiastic. In fact, Emily watches it live on cable. Eighteen-year-old Paige and her fiancé – David – look like they're attending a funeral instead of their nuptials. Paige barely keeps from physically recoiling from her own father as he walks her down the aisle at a stiff gait. Instead she clings to David as much as he clings to her. At least in their misery they have company – besides Emily herself and David's soulmate, whoever he is.
(She's thought about reaching out to David's soulmate, but isn't quite sure how to do so without garnering attention she certainly doesn't want. She thinks he might be one of the only people to truly understand how she feels, how broken her heart is. How hopeless it feels going through life very aware that the love she craves and knows is out there, will never be hers. How it feels to see her soulmate so publicly used – abused – in such a blatant and cruel way by those who are supposed to be happy for her.)
Nick McCullers delivers the homily at his daughter's wedding. Paige and David stand stiffly as they listen. As he espouses the importance of heterosexual unions in pleasing God, and protecting America, Paige starts to cry silent tears, her back straight and head unbowed. Nick glares at her from his pulpit. A thousand miles away, Emily sobs in front of her television. David puts his arm gently around his new wife's shoulders – the gesture is obviously brotherly and not romantic, but Emily seethes with a jealousy she knows is pointless. Even as a large part of her is glad that Paige has someone who knows and understands her. Who shares in her pain and grief.
Her friends find her cried out in front of the television after the last commentary on Paige and David's wedding has aired. She hasn't told them all the details of her reality – they know it's a girl's name on her wrist, but not who it is or the situation Emily finds herself in. She wishes she could tell them – it's only custom, not law, that people keep their soulmate's name secret. But every time she has opened her mouth to say it, her throat closes. Her pain is hers alone to carry, perhaps. Or she doesn't want to admit to it. If she says it out loud to another person, the hopelessness becomes ever so more real.
0000
Paige settles back into her seat. Her and Davey's "honeymoon" is about to commence in Florida, a tropical week of sun and sand. Just as traditional as can be, and a small nod to Paige's desperate desire to swim again, something she's been denied for years by parents who want to stamp out any tendency she has to be her own person, because obviously swimming is tied to her having a woman for a soulmate. She's stopped trying to figure out her parents' logic.
Davey's snoring next to her, his head on her shoulder. She grins – if she's got to be legally tied to a man for the rest of her life, at least Davey's as queer as she is, and her best friend to boot. He's her partner in crime, and soon to be her partner in their desperate bid for freedom now that they're both legal adults. They've been biding their time, ever since they realized they truly could trust one another. Before the wedding, before her eighteenth birthday, any attempt at escape would lead to them being sent home to their legal guardians. Now, both adults, and legally each other's next of kin, they have the best shot at getting away.
Davey, as a pointed slap to the face of all things traditional, knows the name that's on her wrist, hidden by the locked cuff she can't take off. Has even seen the scars where she cut that name into her upper thighs, hidden from her parents' view but not her own, a constant reminder of what she's stayed alive for since she hasn't seen her own wrist in years. She knows the name on his wrist, has it memorized just in case. Their goal is to find Emily first – she remembers Emily from high school in Rosewood, remembers being half in love with her from a distance even before the tattoo appeared on her wrist. Remembers every little detail she stored away in her mind years before, from how Emily took her coffee to her home address to the names of her friends and their addresses. She hasn't been let near a computer except under direct and constant supervision since she was in middle school, so she hasn't had a chance to check if Emily's family still lives in Rosewood, but it's a place to start. Which is more than they can say for finding Davey's soulmate. To find him, they have only a name and a lot of hope.
Paige sighs as she shuts and locks the honeymoon suite's door behind her. The bodyguards – prison guards – from her father's organization were staying next door to give them a modicum of privacy for Davey to impregnate her, which was the entire goal of their honeymoon as had been explicitly stated to them before the wedding. Her and Davey's goal was to get the hell away. Away from their parents, that forced them into this sham of a marriage, to find their soulmates, to have a shot in hell of being happy.
Davey is already sorting through their suitcases when she walks into their bedroom. They'd thankfully been allowed to pack their own things before leaving, and though they hadn't been able to sneak all the things they wanted, they had the most important.
Clothes that can fit either of them, check. Scissors, check. Makeup, check. Two boxes hair dye, check. Tools to remove the cuff bracelets welded onto their wrists, check. Every spare penny they'd found, stolen, and hoarded over the past two years as they planned for this very day. The wall behind their headboard is shared with the guards' room next door. They have things to do, people to fake out, and an escape to manage. But first, Paige needs a haircut.
Three hours later, Davey's legs are smooth as silk, as are his underarms. Paige stares at her face in the mirror. Gone are her long auburn locks, trimmed down to a short, masculine cut. She doesn't like it, terribly much, but it's necessary and at least well done. Davey finishes mixing up the first box of hair dye and settles her down on the toilet seat. For the next month or so, she'll have black hair, and after her shower she'll dye Davey's a dirty blonde.
They don't leave their room for two days, jumping on the bed and moaning outrageously at sporadic intervals. Paige wraps her head in a towel when she answers the door for room service to deliver food. They order a lot of food, much of it stashed away in plastic baggies they brought with them. For another two days, they do the tourist thing, carefully trailed by their bodyguards. They pick up the last couple items they need for their escape. On the fifth day, Paige dresses in Davey's jeans, a tight old sports bra from her freshman year, a loose tee shirt, and a vest while Davey slides into one of her sundresses. They pack their bags and scurry over the balcony railing to the ground a dozen feet below. And it's on. They were given debit cards to pay for their honeymoon expenses, and they drain the modest accounts right before boarding a bus headed northward. They have perhaps a day before they're missed – less if someone is monitoring their ATM withdrawals, and hundreds of miles to go before they're in Rosewood. Paige smiles as she escorts Davey onto the bus, wearing a ball cap, hunching slightly to disguise her partially flattened chest, and passing as a perfect gentleman.
0000
Rosewood has been inundated with rain for a week, mirroring Emily's mood perfectly. The media reports place Paige and her new husband on honeymoon in Florida, and Emily's stomach turns at the very idea. Maybe it's ridiculous to feel so possessive of someone she's never had a proper conversation with, but it's Paige's name on her wrist. Paige who is supposed to be loving her, living and thriving with her, instead of barely surviving in some sham marriage.
She's watching a rerun of Friends when there's a knock at the door. Emily peers through the window, only able to see a shadowed form standing on her porch. She opens the door, catching sight of Paige, her hair short and dark, the men's clothes she's wearing clinging to her soaking wet body. Emily gasps.
"Paige?"
Her arms crossed over her chest, shoulders bowed, Paige stood stock still.
"Are you okay?"
"No," came the tiny, quiet answer.
"What happened?" Emily wants to know everything – for Paige to explain her hair and clothes and being on her porch in Rosewood when she should be with her husband in Florida.
"You have every reason to hate me," Paige says, forcing the words out as she starts to cry. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but I'm here now." She lifts her wrist, free of any covering, where the tattoo reading Emily Fields is plainly visible, and her ring finger is bare.
Emily tears off her cuff, brandishing Paige McCullers to the dark, sodden world. She offers a hand, and when it's taken she pulls Paige to her, clinging to the other girl. Slowly, they meld together on the Fields' front porch, relief and happiness bringing them both to sobbing tears.
They're finally together. They're not alone anymore. And that's all they need.
It's rare, that a name tattoo changes after it first appears. Even after weddings and wives' legal name changes, the tattoos usually stay the same. But a tattoo sometimes does, as it does on that porch in Rosewood, when Paige McCullers changes to Paige Fields. Paige has found her home, her family, the missing part of her soul sliding into place as Emily holds her close. Nothing has ever felt better, and her very identity shifts until even the tattoo on Emily's wrist has to mark the occasion. Before their first kiss, Paige's soul recognizes Emily as her wife, even if no court in the country will.
xoxo