So this is basically just a collection of ways that people could have found out about Aria and Ezra. I'll post the episode/s that each scenario is associated with. Yeah, some of them are a little cliché, perhaps all of them, but they were fun to write. Reviews are always appreciated. I organized it as lessons, and I thought that was rather funny.
I re-uploaded this chapter because my strategically placed white space wasn't present, which totally ruined the way I changed characters. That's it. And some grammar. And a sentence or two that I'm still fiddling with. You know what else doesn't show up? Bigger/smaller writing. I'm really upset because it looks so much cooler on my computer than on the website. *sigh* I suppose we must accept our limitations.
Lesson 1: Never kiss your teacher in public, no matter how alone you think you are
Sometime between episodes 1x20 and 1x22, because of the boyfriend reference. Take that away and it could be anytime after... ep. 15 ish.
Ezra sat at his desk, grading papers. It was late, but it was more comfortable to grade here than at his apartment, where every item reminded him constantly of her. He couldn't even sit on the couch anymore without thinking of Aria, her warmth beside him as they watched movies together. Eating alone was a misery when he knew the heightened feeling he would have if she was with him. It would be ridiculous to be around each other all the time, but he wished that they could be together more often than their position allowed.
And seeing her in his classroom every day, without being able to hold her to him only made things worse. Every look they shared with each other, every subtle touch just built the sexual tension that had permeated into their relationship. He could barely look at her without thinking of the way she would feel and taste. Of running his hands through her perfect hair and pressing his lips against hers.
The hour hand of the clock moved slowly around its face. The sun sank lower and lower, and Ezra stopped for a moment as the sun's rays turned a bright orange and lit up the room. And, as with everything these days, he thought of Aria.
He pushed the thought from his mind; looking dismally at the papers left to grade. Slowly the room darkened, though the bright classroom lights kept the shadows at bay. He was slowly tiring, but he wanted to finish grading the papers before the weekend. He knew that some people were impatient with how soon they got back their papers. He didn't notice the footsteps that came down the hallway.
~*T*~
Aria stopped at his door, then, smiling devilishly, walked into the room. She saw him glance at her, then turn around completely.
"Aria," he said.
"It's late. Shouldn't you do this tomorrow?" she walked over to his desk and leaned against it.
"I wanted to finish them before the weekend. I've procrastinated on them all week and Spencer's been asking me when they'll be done."
Aria rolled her eyes. "Spencer needs to chill. You should come home."
His heart leaped at the word 'home'. Not 'your home', just 'home'.
"I should." he sighed, then looked at his work, almost reluctant to stop now.
Aria, ignoring his need to work, piled his paper into a pile, and he watched her, a slight smile on his face, loving the way she deftly took charge of the situation. He got up, and stretched. She glanced coyly at him, looked around to make sure they were alone, then came over, taking his hands into hers.
He looked down at her; her wide eyes, her perfect hair. Almost unconsciously, he leaned down to kiss her. She rose to meet him, standing on tip toe. Her arms snaked their way up his arms to hold his neck. His wrapped around her waist.
Her lips pressed into his, the feeling of their kiss sending energy shooting through her entire body. Her hand moved down to rest on his chest.
~*T*~
Ella Montgomery was not in the best of moods. She had forgotten her phone at the school, but hadn't noticed up to now because she had been talking with Byron; always an energy draining feat. Now she had to return to the dark school, hope it wasn't locked, and retrieve it.
She let her mind wander to her family. Ever since they had returned to Rosewood, there had been problems. First, she had noticed Aria's strange behavior towards Byron, who had told her it was nothing to worry about. She had also noticed, since she had been watching Aria very carefully at the time, that things weren't going well for her on other fronts; she was having trouble fitting back into school. Then Ella had gotten the letter from A, whoever that was, and she had stopped paying much attention to her kids at all. She could tell that Byron had too; most of their energy went to dealing with each other. Once Ella had begun paying attention to the rest of her family, she had noticed that neither of her kids was doing well. Mike had been getting into fights, and he had been lagging behind on his homework. Only for a little while, however, as Aria had begun to coerce him back into normal life. Not that he didn't still get into fights, but at least his grades weren't dipping.
Aria was a whole other concern. She had since bonded again with her friends, but Ella had a feeling that there was something really wrong. Pressure was probably some of it. Ella had learned, from asking Byron what he did, that Aria was the one who was now cleaning and taking care of Mike. It was definitely not healthy; she didn't seem to be getting much sleep, and had grown increasingly irritable. She also appeared worried every time her phone rang, though she was able to cover it up quickly, leaving Ella wondering if she had just imagined the fear. It always amazed her that Aria was so good at lying. But then, she had lied to her for over a year about Byron's cheating. Ella shook her head. And now, apparently, there was a boy. Not that she wasn't glad that Aria could concentrate on things other than her family's disintegration. Or the problems around her best friend's murder, especially with Spencer being a person of interest, and the fact that Hannah had been run over by a car earlier. Ella shook her head. When it came to Aria, Ella was often surprised that she was functioning at all. She wasn't quite sure what was going on with the murder investigation, but having your best friend be accused of murdering your other best friend was bound to have its pitfalls.
She did worry about the secrecy that Aria felt was necessary to put around this new boy. Ella had tried several times to subtly ask her questions about him, but every time Aria switched the subject and wouldn't discuss him at all. And if Ella pushed, then Aria simply became defensive and still wouldn't tell her a thing. Byron was also worried, so much so that she had caught him about to look through Aria's things. She understood the urge, especially with the cops crawling over everything connected to Alison. But she would never want to intrude on Aria's privacy like that, and had made sure Byron knew she didn't think it was allowable for him to either.
She had retrieved her phone, and was walking back outside when she that there was light down one of the corridors. She wondered which teacher was working so late; it was already nine. Or, perhaps someone had forgotten to turn off the lights. More out of curiosity than anything else, she went down the lit hallway.
She recognized which room it was coming from before she reached it: Mr. Fitz's. She walked down to his room, then stopped when she could see inside. A gasp escaped her lips.
~*T*~
Aria was standing in the room, making out with her teacher. Aria's hands had found themselves under his shirt, gently caressing his skin, while his hands were relatively chastely holding her against him. Aria let her mouth stray from Mr. Fitz's, nuzzling his neck with her lips. He held tighter onto Aria, letting his head fall back, baring his neck more to her gentle caresses. His eyes were closed in bliss.
Ella's mind stopped for a second, then her anger flared. She stalked over to the classroom door, and flung it open, watching as they jumped quickly apart and turned to stare at her with wide eyes.
"M-mom! What are you doing here?" Aria asked, startled.
"I could ask you the same thing," said Ella, folding her arms and training a cold glare on both of them.
"I asked you first," said Aria, stalling for time.
Aria glanced at Ezra, who was nervously running his hands through his hair and staring at the floor, trying to go unnoticed. Not that Aria thought her mom would listen to him at the moment anyway. Her gaze went back to her mom.
"I came here for my phone. What did you come here for?" her mom's voice had a cold edge to it.
"W-well, I, um," Aria looked over at Ezra again. He caught her gaze, worried, almost afraid. Both clearly conveyed the same question in their eyes: now what?
"Yes?" Aria turned back to her mom.
What to say? This had never been the way she was planning on telling her mom. "I came here to, you know," she paused, looked down at the ground.
"Make out with your English teacher?" finished her mom for her.
Aria blushed. "Yeah, that's, um, that's what I, we," Aria caught Ezra's gaze again, linking the two of them. "we were doing."
"I assume there's some sort of explanation behind this." Ella looked from one to the other. Aria had raised her head again, and was looking at her mom with a shade of defiance, as if she was thinking about silently daring her to tell her she was wrong. Ezra looked like a little kid who'd been caught with his hand in a box of cookies.
"Well- we're dating. You know, we have been dating, for a while now." she paused, then continued uncertainly. "You're not going to tell anyone, are you?"
Ella pointedly looked at Ezra, who was staring at his feet again. "Any reason I shouldn't?"
"Because I asked?" Aria tried to smile sweetly.
Ezra smiled slightly at that, and Aria, constantly watching him from her peripheral vision, grinned slightly too. Her mom, however, did not smile.
"Do you two have any idea what you're doing? You're dating your student for heaven's sake!" Ella directed her last comment at Ezra.
~*T*~
"I'm aware of that." he kept his eyes firmly fixed on the floor. His voice had come out thin, begging. She would hate him, he was sure she would. She probably already did.
"And what, that didn't set off any red bells? You just decided, what the hell?"
He looked up at Ella. "No, I didn't just decide 'what the hell'. I just-" he stopped and shrugged his shoulders, not sure what to say. 'I fell in love' probably wouldn't go over well at the moment. He looked at Aria for support. She gave him a look of love in return, then turned to her mom.
"It's not like it's his fault. I made my choice, too." she was definitely more sure of herself now that she was protecting him from attack.
"Clearly not a very good one! Did you just forget that your he's your teacher, Aria?" asked Ella.
She didn't even have to look at Ezra to feel the irony of those words. "No. I definitely don't ever let the fact that he's my teacher slip my mind." She matched her mom's glare, crossing her arms in an instinctual mirror of her mom. Ezra marveled briefly at how alike they were. "It's not exactly an easy fact to miss. No proper dates, no hand holding, no telling anyone. Trust me mom, if I could forget it I would."
Ezra's gaze fell to the floor again. He knew how much she was giving up to be with him. Her stating it in such a blunt fashion was painful, but clearly they also kind of reached her mom, who glanced down briefly.
It was clear that the argument was between Aria and her mom by now, probably because Ella had realized soon after entering that Aria was the stronger one in their relationship.
~*T*~
Ella stopped to take a breath and try to think about this calmly. She still came up with one answer: this was insane. But she doubted that yelling was the way to go here. She tried instead to just get information.
"How long?" she asked under her breath. How long had Aria been sneaking away to meet her teacher?
Aria bit her lip. "Since labor day."
"Labor day?" Ella looked up to catch the two of them exchanging another look. This was wrong. She wasn't sure she could watch them gaze at each other like that any longer. "You know what, Aria, we're going home. I won't tell, but I don't want the two of you seeing each other anymore, understood?"
They looked at each other again, this time filled with worry. Then they looked at the floor, and Aria began to leave the room. Then she stopped, and went back to kiss Mr. Fitz softly goodbye. Ella looked away, her mind rebelling against the sight of her innocent sixteen year old kissing her teacher.
"I love you," Aria whispered softly.
"I love you, too," he answered.
Ella bit her lip, then looked back to see them staring into each other's eyes again, as if they were trying to memorize everything about the other.
"Let's go." the strain crept into Ella's voice, and Aria turned and walked past her mom without looking at her. Ella followed, and saw Aria glance back into the room as they passed, sharing yet another look with her teacher.
Alright guys, most of these are going to be one shots. Just the finding out and some talking about it. If you want me to turn any of them into longer stories, just say so and I'll think about it. I'm here for your entertainment. If I was doing it for only me, then I wouldn't be posting it. I'd just keep it in some far away corner on my computer. So if you don't like something, or think the characters are out of character, then say so. And don't just review saying 'I like it.' That doesn't help me. Gives me an ego boost, yes, but other than that it's kind of useless. Be more concrete. And don't be afraid to tell me I wrote 'as' instead of 'at'. I'm being totally serious, I want to know all the small, stupid mistakes I've made.
And as far as reviews go, they also remind me that I have a story to write. Because I might forget, you never know. I'm already farther into the second chapter than I would have been had you guys not responded in such an overwhelming fashion. (It was amazing, I don't think I've ever had over 30 emails in my inbox before)
P.S. Doesn't it change things to have the parts clearly defined? I think it really shows off my writing better because you can see how I changed viewpoints. You know, Aria calls him Ezra, while Ella uses Mr. Fitz? Things like that didn't make sense on the un-differentiated version. And the differentiation was really hard to make stick. Just thought I'd let you guys know.
