A/N: I've been very wary to write this fic (or really any idea close to it) given that the same time I considered writing something along these lines, my friend sleepnthehrding had already drawn up the plot for pArt of Him. I didn't say much publicly, but I lost a friend a week or so after she first told me about the plot, who left a wife and yet-to-be-born daughter. He's been on my mind every day these past few months, and his daughter's birth was bittersweet. There's not a day that passes that I'm not thinking about his entire family. I digress-I still was not quick to jump and write a story with such a similar situation. However, I recently found out someone I love very much is terminally ill, and is not doing well. That's a lot of grief to sit on. (I will mention, I'm handling it all very well, but there are certainly tears to be shed.)
As it is, words on a page are how I get things out. I know I've dabbled in death fanfics before (Help Me Remember), but I need to venture into something more raw at the moment. This is most-likely a one-off; I have no plans to follow it up. But it's raw and honest.
Never Forget You
It's cold but sunny as Aria stares out the window to the snow fallen over the deck in her back yard. She's not sure what time is; the last time she saw the clock-awhile ago-it was past two. The heater kicks in some feet away from her, and a warm gush of air moves across the floor towards her. She loosens her fingers where they're wrapped around the front of her calves.
Her phone buzzes at her side, and she exhales heavily as it moves minutely on the floor, but doesn't turn to grab it or make any attempt to answer it. Eventually, the buzzing stops, and she exhales a long breath before reaching up to brush a strand of hair out of her face. As she does, the knuckle of her left thumb brushes her cheek, spreading a tear drop. She shivers lightly.
Her phone begins to buzz again beside her, and she finally glances down at it. Spencer's name is on the screen. She's less than enthused at the idea of answering it, but Spencer has Harper. Exhaling a long breath, she picks the phone up and accepts the call before lifting the phone to her ear.
"Hello?" She's doing her best attempt to sound held-together.
"Hey," Spencer replies. "I just ran into your mom and she was wondering if you wanted Harper back just yet. She wants to take her for a bit, and then I could drop in on you for a bit without her."
Aria chews her bottom lip, considering the option. Harper is the only thing that keeps her from just giving up and staying in bed forever these days, but the break has been somewhat of a relief. She inhales another deep breath. "Sure. Tell her I'll pick her up before dinner."
"Great," Spencer says. A few moments later, Aria hears a door slam shut through her phone. "I'll be in in a minute."
Aria's brow furrows, but not for long. Shortly after the line goes dead, she hears the creaking of ther front door. She considers getting up, but decides against it. Spencer's already in the house. There's no use in hiding herself now.
The taller female walks through the small condo quietly, and comes to stand in the kitchen a few moments later. Aria glances up at Spencer from her spot on the floor.
"I figured I might find you like this," Spencer says as she unbuttons her coat. She drapes it over a chair at the small table and then leans down to pull off her boots before she walks over to the counter Aria's leaning against and sits down.
"How're you doing today?" Spencer asks her. Aria rests her head on the curly brunette's shoulder, and Spencer sighs. Aria doesn't need to use words. Her movements are enough of an explanation.
August 14th wasn't any different from the average summer day lately. Though Ezra was prepping for the beginning of the school year, they still found themselves at the beach pretty regularly. Granted, no one could really be blamed for hanging at the beach-and there were a lot of people there. It was swelteringly hot. The worst of the summer heat seemed as though it should've passed already, but it was sticking around as long as it could. The past few days just barely stayed in the eighties, and the news seemed to be projecting similar weather for at least another three days. Still, they'd managed to find an area that wasn't overloaded with people and was relatively quiet.
The shade over her shifted, and Aria glanced up from her book to see Hardy standing over her.
"What's up?" She asked.
Hardy shook his head, looking out at the water. He wasn't a big fan of the ocean-riptides and all that-so he'd delegated himself to be Aria's beach bum. At least, that was until half an hour earlier when Spencer had come along and poured a bucket of ocean water over his head. He'd been in and out of the water since then.
"Baby kicking much?" Hardy asked after a moment. He sat down next to her and grabbed a water bottle from the cooler between them, twisting off the cap.
"Not much right now," Aria replied. "She's probably napping."
Hardy nodded and took a sip of his water. A moment later he spoke again. "How's your book?"
Aria exhaled softly and closed it, glancing over at him with a slight smirk on her face. He grew bored quickly sitting on the beach. "Are you bored?"
Hardy shrugged. Aria chuckled, but then yawned.
"Oh hey, a yawn," Hardy commented. "We should head back so you can take a nap."
Aria laughed again. His attempt at hiding an escape in being chivalrous wasn't lost on her. But as she yawned again, she wasn't entirely against the idea. She'd napped in the sun at the beach before, but it wasn't really as comfortable as her air-controlled condo.
"I'll go get-...Spencer," Hardy said with a smirk as she came walking up the beach towards them. She picked up her towel and dried herself a bit before glancing down at Aria and Hardy.
"What's up?"
"We were thinking of heading back to the condo," Aria said. "I need a nap."
Spencer nodded. "Ezra said he'd figured you'd feel that way about this time." She turned and glanced back towards the water.
"Did he head up to the bathroom?" Aria asked after a long minute.
"No," Spencer replied. "We were just talking and he was headed back up to the beach."
Aria glanced back and forth between Spencer, Hardy, and the beach for several seconds before pushing out of her chair and struggling to get to her feet. Spencer and Hardy each grabbed an arm and helped her to stand fully after a moment, and then turned their attention back towards the water.
The shower turns on in bathroom, and Spencer picks up Aria's phone from the floor as the sound of rushing water wanes from the door being shut. She's used to this by now, but it doesn't make it any easier to be around Aria this way.
Spencer remembers that afternoon with harsh clarity. It isn't to say that she'd forget it had she been somewhere else, but the things she saw that day were near-impossible to erase from her mind. From Ezra's lifeless body to Aria's heartbroken wails, there seems to be no way she's ever going to forget what happened.
She goes to work preparing food for Aria-an egg and sausage omelet and several slices of toast-while she waits. She knows that when Aria's left to her own devices, food isn't high on her priority list.
By the time she settles the food onto a plate, the shower has shut off in the othe room. Spencer sets out making two cups of cocoa.
As she's finishing, Aria finally returns to the room. She's dressed in a pair of black skinny jeans and a longsleeved blue shirt with mesh sleeves. She walks over to the table and sits down, exhaling a breath as she picks up a slice of toast and takes a bite of it.
"How'd you sleep?" Spencer asks her.
Aria shrugs, chewing her food before she answers. "Alright, I guess. I took something, but I woke up three when I rolled over. The other side of the bed was ice cold."
"I know you said you wanted to stay here, but-"
Aria shakes her head at Spencer, cutting her off before she can even get the sentence out. "We're fine here, Spence. Going somewhere else isn't going to change how I feel."
Spencer stares at Aria skeptically, but doesn't argue the point as she lifts her mug of cocoa to her mouth and sips it. She's been down this road with Aria a number of times in the past few months. Every time, Aria insists that she wants to stay in the condo with Harper. And while Spencer-and really every one else who loves Aria-understands that she feels its the only connection she has left to Ezra, they also see it as unhealthy.
"Maybe not," Spencer finally says when she's swallowed her cocoa. "But it would help to be around other people."
"It won't cha-..." Her voice is firm and angry at first, but as it catches in her throat, she pauses, and her hands grip the table. Aria's chin trembles and tears form, making her eyes appear glassy. She closes them and gulps. The pain on her face is enough to rip Spencer's heart out.
"Aria, we're scared," Spencer says in an attempt to appeal to her. "I see you every day, and every day, I see how lonely...and broken, you are. You don't seem like you're getting along in any of it at all. I don't want you to get mad and feel like people are ganging up on you...but I don't want to lose you to the grief either," Spencer tells her.
Aria looks Spencer in the eyes as she speaks, at least until she can't anymore. As her eyes fall to stare at the toast left on her plate, so do the first few tears.
"I'm sorry," she whimpers when Spencer finishes speaking. Several more tears fall quickly, and Aria feels her throat tightening. She forces herself to take several deep breaths, calming herself at least slightly. She shakes her head as she looks back up at Spencer. "I'm so so sorry."
Spencer shakes her head and moves out of her seat, walking around the table. She turns the chair next to Aria's and faces it the opposite way before sitting on it and hugging the smaller girl.
"Don't apologize," Spencer tells her as several tears fall from her own eyes. "I just want you to feel...something close to okay again. I didn't want to upset you."
Aria shakes her head, whimpering as she buries her face in Spencer's collarbone. After several more sobs leave her body, she forces herself to pull it together-at least somewhat-before parting from the other girl and pulling it together.
"Are you honestly really okay here on your own?" Spencer asks as she wipes tears from her own face.
Aria shrugs, staring back down at the table again. She's still crying, but her tears fall quietly, and she's more composed. It's silent between them, and Spencer waits for Aria to find her words.
"Every night, I lay in bed and think about everything," she admits, glancing up towards Spencer, and then back down. Her eyes move back and forth between looking her best friend in the eye and staring at inanimate objects, never holding for long. "I think about how he would stay awake until one AM talking to Harper until she would finally calm down enough to let me sleep. And I think about how he used to talk about all these plans we'd make, like going to LA in May for Hanna's birthday, and it breaks my heart. But that's when I feel closest to him.
"But then, when I wake up in the morning, it's like I've never been so alone in my life. Especially when I wake up before Harper does, and I just listen to that empty silence." Aria's body shakes as several tears roll down her face. She finally holds a gaze with Spencer. "He was always the first one up, and he'd watch me sleep. I keep thinking I'll wake up one morning and he'll be sitting right there, smiling down at me."
Spencer sobs silently as several large tears roll down her own face. Aria's brow furrows.
"What's wrong?" Aria asks.
Spencer shakes her head, forcing herself to pull it back together. "I'm fine," she insists. "I just see how much pain you're in, and I try to imagine how that must feel, what the emptiness must be like...and trying to forsee that much pain is heartbreaking."
Aria reaches out and grabs Spencer's hand, squeezing it lightly. Spencer squeezes back.
"I think about leaving every morning," Aria tells her a few moments later. "I think about how much I miss him, and how much it hurts to be surrounded by all of his things, and I tell myself I should just go. And then I get as far as the kitchen, staring at my keys on the counter, and..." She pauses again and a pained expression crosses her face as more tears fall. "It's like I can feel him holding me here. Like if I go, he won't be where I go next, and he'll just be gone."
Aria begins to cry harder once more as she finishes speaking, and Spencer doesn't stop her. She cries as well, although it's a bit more subdued than her best friend. Because as much as Aria's grief scares her, it's the most openly honest Aria has been about how she feels since Ezra's death.
"What if I leave and he doesn't stay with me, Spencer?" Aria asks as she cries. Her voice is raw and filled with so much pain, it makes Spencer physically sob. "What if I leave here, and I don't feel him anymore? And what if I forget how his voice sounds one day? Or the way he smells, or the way his laugh sounds...And the way his lips felt on..." Aria's voice trails off, and she gasps for a breath before a noise escapes her mouth that Spencer's never heard before. As she sits next to the shorter girl and they cry together-only touching where Aria's hand is resting over Spencer's-the realization dawns on her of the driving force behind the wail from Aria. It's that Aria's fully understanding that Ezra isn't-and can't-come back home to her someday.
Aria shakes her head in fast movements, pulling her hand away from Spencers and lifting both her hands to her head, She digs her fingers into her scalp as she holds her head, lifting her feet up onto her chair and rocking back and forth.
"Why did this happen," she cries as though she expects an answer that she'll accept. "Why him? Why did he leave me?" She turns and looks at Spencer. "Why did he leave, Spence? Why did he not want to be here anymore with me and Harper?"
Spencer shakes her head, wrapping her arms tightly around Aria. "He didn't want to leave you, Aria. I know he didn't. He loved-loves-you and Harper so much!'
"Then why is he gone?!" Aria wails. Its so loud that Spencer cringes at the volume of Aria's voice. One again, they cry wordlessly, neither moving.
Some time passes before Aria finally calms down. When she finally does, Spencer is wary to release the other girl, fearful of her possible reaction. Even so, she slowly moves away, leaning back millimeters at a time. When she's finally far enough back that she can settle back in her seat, she does so. As she does, eighteen words leave Aria's mouth that Spencer knows will be stuck in her head for eternity.
"I just don't understand how a perfectly healthy twenty-seven year-old drops dead of a heart attack."
-
Sing me something that'll bring me to my knees
That'll put my mind at ease
-
As Spencer eases the door shut behind her, the smell of food is pungent in the warm air of Ella and Zack's home. They live a mere two miles from Aria, though they're closer to the city than Aria is in her condo.
Hardy stands at her side, unbuttoning his jacket as Spencer toes off her winter boots. They were supposed to have a date night, but she was too worried to leave Aria alone after their conversation earlier in the afternoon.
"You sure you're okay?" Hardy asks as he places his coat on a rack next to the door. Spencer nods as he takes the collar of her coat and pulls it down as she eases her arms out of it. She knows that she has poached-egg eyes.
"It was just a rough afternoon," Spencer tells him as she turns to face him. They stare at each other for a few moments before she rests her hands on either side of his torso and leans in and pecks his cheek. Hardy wraps his hands loosely around her back and kisses her back on her left temple.
"You know you can talk to me, right?" He says when Spencer has leaned back far enough that they can see each other again.
Spencer nods but doesn't speak. She knows he means well, but she also knows that he's got his own share of grief on his shoulders. He's lost his best friend, and for everything that Ezra Fitz ever was to her in the five years she knew him, he wasn't ever her lover or best friend.
"I know," she says finally. "But I'm okay. My tears were for Aria."
Hardy nods, turning so that they're both facing the same way, though his right arm moves from the small of her back.
"You said she's made a choice about what she's going to do," he phrases in a question as they walk towards the kitchen.
Spencer nods. "I think she intends on trading off between being here and by us until she figures out where she wants to be. Ella's been fine with her being here since Ezra...and if being by us is what she needs-"
"Then she can stay as she long as she wants," Hardy finishes as they reach the entryway to the kitchen. Spencer pauses, and he turns to look back at her.
"You're sure?" She asks.
Hardy nods. "Harper is the only connection I've got left to Ezra too."
Spencer nods, though not without a knot forming in her throat. She's all too aware of how much Aria and Hardy have lost, and she hates it. It feels like too much suffering for two people she's only ever known to have an extreme amount of love.
The conversation falls away as they join Ella, Aria, and Harper in the kitchen. Aria's mood has lifted, and she's actually giggling as Harper pulls on her bottom lip.
"You're just so cute," Aria tells her two month old daughter happily. "Yes you are. Yes yes yes you are."
Ella chuckled at her daughter and granddaughter before glancing up and spotting Spencer and Hardy. She waved them over. "Come sit. I was just going to get plates for the pizza."
Aria gaped at her mother. "Really mom? Pizza? That's so sacrilege."
Ella scowled lightly at Aria. "Zack isn't here. What he doesn't know won't hurt him."
Aria chuckled, but didn't argue the fact further with her mother. Harper squirmed a bit in her arms, and Aria shifted her so she was a bit more upright. Harper opened her mouth and sucked on the side of her mother's clothed breast and Aria laughed once more.
"You just ate, and you already want me to get indecent?"
Ella settled plates on the table and began placing them in front of chairs. "She only had two ounces after she woke up from her last nap."
Aria looked down at Harper with a skeptical expression. "Are you really that hungry? Or are you just looking for attention?"
Harper squirmed, kicking her legs as she cooed. Aria chuckled and lifted Harper up a bit higher in her arms. Harper rested her head on Aria's breast, cuddling into her mother.
"I think we're good for the moment," Aria told Ella a moment later. Ella brought the pizza boxes over to the table and removed the tops before the four of them each took a few pieces. Aria held Harper securely in her left arm while she held a piece of pizza in her other hand.
"Do you have any idea of what you want to do with the condo?" Ella asked.
Aria shrugged, chewing a bite of pizza. "For now, I just want to leave it. I can't sell it, but if I stay there..." Her voice trailed off and she shook her head.
"It's alright," Ella told her gently. "One step at a time. On a related subject though...what're your plans for school? I know the plan was to go back in January-"
Aria shook her head, settling her slice of pizza on her plate. She grabbed a napkin and wiped her hand off before standing and walking out of the room. Ella, Spencer, and Hardy exchanged confused glances, but Aria returned a few seconds later with a bouncer. She placed Harper in it next to her chair and buckled her in securely before settling back in her chair.
"I called my advisor a few weeks ago and told him I wasn't ready," Aria finally replied. "But I talked to Rob at the gallery the other day about returning, and he said that my spot is open when I want it, so I'm gonna go back there part-time. I know it won't cover much, but-"
"Don't worry about what you can or can't cover right now," Ella said. "We'll figure it all out."
-
We can dance until we die; you and I will be young forever
-
Every night is a battle for Aria. One would think that getting Harper down for the night would be the hardest part, but it's in fact the one spark of solace in her nightly activities. Devoting her attention to her daughter keeps her mind off of everything else. When Harper is awake, Aria doesn't have any other choice but to think about what her daughter wants, needs, and feels.
In the beginning-that is, the first days after Ezra was gone-she focused herself almost entirely on sticking with a routine. She got up at the same time every morning, ate breakfast, got ready for the day, and then went to work. When she got done, she met up with Spencer or Ella and kept herself preoccupied with whatever activity they planned for the afternoon. And on the rare chance that Spencer and Ella were both busy, she went to The Brew and made Zack put her to work until one of them was free. Usually by the time she got home, she was tired enough to just go to bed and go to sleep.
But after Harper was born, her routine was thrown out the window by her screaming, breathing, living newborn. Harper shattered Aria's fragile grasp on the world by forcing her to face the reality of being a single parent. There were nights in the first few weeks where they both cried incessantly, because Aria didn't know what to do to help her daughter, and Harper couldn't tell her.
In the weeks before Harper's birth and after Ezra's death, Aria held herself together under the guise that she was going to be fine because she had to be. Her daughter needed her. Harper needed Aria to eat, sleep, and breathe in order to survive. But after she'd given birth, Aria slowly came to the realization that Harper could and would make it without being entirely dependent on Aria (regardless of the fact that Aria would be her first choice as caretaker). The more Harper chiseled away at Aria's perfectly crafted facade, the harder it got.
The door opens across the room and Aria looks up from her phone to see Hardy standing in the doorway.
"Spencer thought you might be cold," he says as he carries a thick comforter into the room. Aria smiles at him.
"Thanks," she replies softly.
Hardy nods as he settles the blanket on the end of the bed. He makes no move to shake it out or to leave, and an awkward silence falls between them. When he finally looks up to speak, Aria beats him to the punch.
"How do you do it?" She asks.
Hardy's brow furrows. "Do what?"
"Get through every day without him?" Aria questions. "I feel like I'm covered head to toe in all of it and can't escape. But you seem like you've got it together..."
Hardy chuckles softly, just once. He shakes his head, looking Aria in the eyes. "I'm not, I promise. I wake up every day wondering when I'm gonna stop feeling like I'm not missing a part of myself."
"I feel like all I ever do anymore is cry," Aria tells him. Though she's wearing sweatpants under the blankets, she pulls them up a bit higher. "And I cry because I'm angry at him, and sad that he's not here, and then because I'm sorry... There's so many things I want to tell him, and I don't even know where to start."
Hardy nods with a thoughtful expression on his face. He perches on the edge of the bed, and Aria reaches down to pull it out of his way to have more room to sit.
"You know, I go to work every day, and everything has been going really great on this case we're working on, and," he pauses, laughing. Aria can hear the mirth behind it. "Everything is going really great after all this crap we dealt with the past few weeks, and every day I get my phone out when I'm done to call Spencer, and for this split second...I see his name in my contacts, and I just want to call and tell him."
"I hate that he's gone," Aria says. "I'm so mad every day. Sometimes at him, but most of the time...I'm just so incredibly pissed that he's not here anymore."
Hardy nods wordlessly, staring down at the blanket.
"Do you ever think it'll get...I don't believe in better, but...easier?" Aria asks.
Hardy shrugs. "I don't know. I think maybe you just learn to live with it."
Aria inhales a deep breath and then forces a smile on her face in a determined struggle to keep from crying. "I'm not sure that's possible, but I guess I'm willing to try."
"S'not really any other option, is there?" Hardy comments. "I mean the last thing he'd want you to do is give up."
Aria nods, chewing on her bottom lip. She looks down at her phone in her lap and picks it up. She pushes the button to wake it up and stares down at the photo of Ezra on her lock screen. It's from the previous Christmas. They'd just gotten married a few months earlier, and things were going very well. They'd just finally gotten their condo set up, and she'd made him stand in front of the tree so that she could take a few pictures. Of course, Ezra chose that moment to be a goofball, and most of her pictures ended up being silly. It was only the last photo she took that he finally looked decent because he was laughing, and she managed to get a photo of him smiling. It had remained her favorite photo of him ever since.
"I suppose so," she says finally. She looks up at Hardy and granted a small smile. He smiles back at her for a moment before yawning. Aria chuckles. "You should go to bed."
"You sure you'll be alright?" He asks.
Aria nods. "Go ahead. I'll be fine."
Hardy stares at her skeptically for a few moments, but eventually he rises and leaves the room, pulling the door shut behind him. Aria glances down at the pack & play on the floor, watching Harper sleep for a minute or so before she yawns.
"Alright," she says softly to herself. She glances back at her phone once more, bringing her screen up to see the photo of Ezra once more before she leans over and places her phone on the nightstand. Afterwards, she turns the light off and then lies down the bed. As she lays in the silence and darkness, she realizes she doesn't feel entirely beside herself. She doesn't necessarily feel happy, either, but she's willing to acknowledge feeling...okay.
She turns over in the bed and pulls on her pillows a bit, arranging them to her liking before closing her eyes. She recalls the first thing she ever sent to him on Facebook after he'd died, because even if he wouldn't actually respond or see it, she could still try and send it to him.
I sleep, per chance to dream. At least I know I'll see you there.