A/N: This is partially out of my normal 'ship for PLL. I hope you enjoy it! I do not own Pretty Little Liars.

"Forgive me." Ezra whispered to Aria as they sat together.

"No." Ezra moved closer to Aria in his car.

"Forgive me." He whispered again.

"Ezra, no, not like this. If what we have is going to work, it needs to happen the right way. Not with you taunting me with kisses in your car in the middle of the night. And not while I'm seeing someone!"

At that, it was like Aria had thrown cold water in his face. He straightened up in his seat and said, "You're right. Of course you're right." He cleared his throat and forced a chuckle, "you're not supposed to be the mature one here, you know?"

Oh gosh, he was so adorable, even in the dark; she could see that heartwarming smile. "Believe me, I want to kiss you, but I have a very dark moment in my past related to someone being dishonest in a relationship. I'm not going to do that to someone. Especially when Noel's done nothing wrong." Aria could more sense his hurt than see any reaction from him. She couldn't see his eyes, but she could imagine the pain in them. She knew just how he was feeling.

"So what are you going to do? I know I want to be with you, Aria. I want to be that guy you're with, but seeing you with him, I know you can go in public with him. I'm not going to force this on you, if you think you can be happy with him." Aria moved her hand to cup his face and turned him to look at her.

"I'm sorry, Ezra. We have these feelings, but we know that us being together in our current situation is dangerous, for both of us. And you made me push my feelings away, even if it didn't work so well, you still forced me to try. I can't just forget that." She took a deep breath and grabbed the door handle. "I'm giving Noel the chance he deserves." And with that, she threw open the door, slammed it behind her, and took off into the night to go back to Mona's party and pretend she hadn't just rejected the guy she could have seen herself happy with for a long, long time.

As Aria was walking back to the campground, calming herself down and telling herself she'd done what was right, she became aware of footfalls behind her. At that same moment, her phone went off.

Aria stilled and then sped up. Should she check the message? Maybe it was Hanna behind her, and the text was telling her to slow down so she could catch up. How likely was that? She reached her hand into her pocket, ready to call someone for help. But then, "Aria!"

She whipped around, ready to scream, only to come face-to-face with Noel Kahn.

"Noel! Holy crap, you scared me half to death! What are you doing out here?" she was clutching her chest and it took her a few seconds to get over the initial shock and notice his face. He was pissed.

"You know, I could ask you the same question, except I think what I saw earlier cleared that up for me." He had his hands in his pockets and was shifting from foot to foot, looking more at the ground than at Aria. After noticing his anger, Aria's first thought was that he was mad because he thought he'd caught her cheating on him when they'd just started something, but his behavior wasn't matching up. He seemed angry at someone else and nervous to look her in the eye.

"Noel, what exactly did you see?" she cautiously took a step toward him, which with her shorter stature, put her more squarely in his line of sight.

"Aria, I saw you in his car." He looked straight at her, "Whatever he told you to get you into that car, I can help you. I'll go to the principal with you. He won't get away with this. That pretty-boy teacher probably thinks he can just because most girls in our class think he's so-"

"Noel!" Aria cut him off. So that explained his behavior. He was angry at Ezra, because he thought Ezra had tricked her into the car. Or worse, had threatened her. "Noel, it's… it's not like that."

He looked taken aback for a second before his features morphed from shock to hurt. He swallowed hard, "Then what is it like?"

"Noel," she reached for his hand and she thought it was a good sign that he didn't pull away, "look, can we talk about this someplace less sketchy?" Her phone beeped again. "You deserve and explanation, and you'll get one." And again "Just, no he-" Her phone chimed for the fourth time. "Oh my gosh, what is it?!" She pulled her phone out, annoyed, and pulled up her texts.

Hanna: S.O.S. I know who -A is. Meet me in the parking lot"

Spencer: Where are you? Didn't you get Hanna's text? Hanna got hit by a car, get over here!

Emily: Are you okay? Answer us!

Unknown: She knew too much -A

"Oh my gosh, Hanna got hit by a car. I have to go." Aria was vaguely aware of Noel shouting after her and then of his footsteps coming up behind her, but all she was focused on was getting to the lot. Once there, she joined Spencer and Emily, crying while supporting Hanna's body.

~Set in the hospital, after Hanna is awake~

"Noel Kahn is -A"

Aria stood, rooted to the floor. "No, he can't be. I was with him when we go all got that -A text. He couldn't have sent it."

"No, I saw him. He was standing, watching a car and he was about to write on the back window when… someone got out of the car." Hanna seemed to trail off after that.

"But you didn't actually see him write it?" Spencer sat down on the edge of the hospital bed and began to look skeptical.

"No, I guess I didn't." Hanna looked down at her leg and then flopped back onto her pillows.

Emily looked deep in thought. "Well, if we can figure out who was getting out of the car, or even who the car belonged to, maybe that could help us."

Hanna locked eyes with Aria, "Umm, I don't think that'll really-"

"It as Mr. Fitz's car." Aria blurted out and then cringed at what she had just said.

Emily and Spencer both turned to look at Aria and then back at Hanna, who was picking at her nails. "How do you know that?" Spencer asked, trying to fit the pieces together.

"Because." Aria took a deep breath, "I was the one getting out of the car."

"Woah, what? Excuse me?" Spencer had jumped up from the bed and was standing with her arms crossed. Emily looked back to Hanna for confirmation.

Hanna looked apologetically at Aria as she answered. "Yeah, I saw Noel about to write on Mr. Fitz's car when Aria got out of it. Then he started following her and I sent you all that text. I figured Aria would read it and get to the parking lot and I'd be able to warn her about Noel."

Spencer sighed, "Well, Han, that pretty much means Noel's not -A. He was just mad that his quasi-girlfriend was in some other guy's car, in the woods, in the middle of the night! Which brings us back to… what the hell were you doing in our teacher's car, Aria?"

"Okay guys, this is kind of a long story, bear with me. When I first got back from Iceland, I had to drop Mike off for practice. After I did that, I had time to kill so I went to Snooker's to eat-"

"You went to a bar?" Emily interrupted.

"Not a bar, a… pub. But anyway, Ezra, uh, Mr. Fitz was in there and we really hit it off. We were going to start seeing each other and then he ended up being our teacher. We decided we had to not see each other, then we decided that wouldn't work, but then we go into a huge fight. Well, then I started dating Noel. Tonight, Ezra wanted to apologize. I told him I couldn't just drop Noel, who has done nothing wrong, to pursue my illegal relationship again."

"But you said you were with Noel when we got the -A text." Spencer was still reeling that Aria had kept this from them for so long, but was trying to stick to the important facts. They could deal with the rest of it later.

"Yeah, I got out of Ezra's car, started walking back to Mona's, and then my phone went off, that was Hanna's text. I had heard someone walking behind me, so I didn't want to stop to check it, but then it turned out to be Noel."

Just then, there was a knock on the door. Aria went to answer it and was surprised to see Noel's face for the second time in the last 24 hours.

"Noel! What are you doing here?" Aria moved outside the door so that he couldn't see into the room.

"I came to see Hanna and to let her know that Sean's going to stop by soon, but he's waiting to pick up a gift for her before he comes by."

Aria moved him out of the way to stand by a nurses' work station. "Well that's sweet of you, of both of you, but she's kind of out of it right now. We were just getting ready to leave."

"No, that's totally cool, I understand." He handed Aria the basket he'd been holding as a present for Hanna. "Just tell her I stopped by, will you?" He began to turn away and then turned back to face Aria. "Look, I know a lot has happened in the past few hours and you have a lot on your mind, but we need to clear the air here."

Aria adjusted her grip on the basket nervously. I know. I know we do, I will call you. Okay? I promise."

He gave her a little half smile and lifted his hand to her shoulder. "Okay, talk to you later." He gave her shoulder a squeeze and turned around to walk down the hall.

Aria turned to re-enter the room, knowing that her friends would want a recap of this exchange and then the rest of the story of her and Ezra.

Aria had been staring at her phone since she left the hospital. How in the world was she supposed to explain this to him? It was hard enough to explain it to her three best friends. "Well, no time like the present." Aria mumbled to herself and dialed his number, waiting anxiously for it to connect.

"Aria?"

"Hey, Noel. Yeah, it's me. You sound so shocked."

"Well, I wasn't actually expecting you to call. 'I'll call you' usually means 'I'm going to avoid you as much as I can.'"

Aria bit on her lip, happy that he couldn't see her, as she had, in fact, been trying to think of a good way to avoid him. "No, of course not. Umm, do you want to meet up outside the Grille?"

"Yeah, I'll be there in ten." He disconnected and Aria hopped up to make it there in time.

"Hey." Aria walked up to Noel and stood on her tip-toes to kiss his cheek. She'd meant what she told Ezra, she wanted to give Noel his shot, if he still wanted a shot, that is.

"Hey, that was more enthusiastic than I had expected." He smiled his thousand-watt smile down at her and she had no choice but to smile back.

"Well, I figured it couldn't hurt." She looked inside the Grille at the nearly full tables, "do you want to just walk? It'll give us a little more privacy."

"Yeah, okay." They began walking, but she was still hesitant to bring up the main topic. "Look, I'm just going to cut to it here." Okay, Noel was going to open it for her. "You were in our teacher's car, in the middle of the night, in a secluded area. I'm having trouble seeing why I shouldn't go to the principal."

Aria stopped to look at him. Whatever had happened between them, she needed to protect Ezra. "Noel, I don't know what you saw, or thought you saw, but nothing happened. We were just talking."

"Yeah, because that makes it okay? No, it wouldn't be weird at all if I called up Mrs. Welch at midnight and asked her to meet me in the park." He looked incredulously at her and then turned away, looking disgusted.

"Noel! Wait. I can give you a better explanation. He and I met before school started and began to see each other. Since school started, we've been figuring out what to do. It's hard to just stop seeing someone with whom you feel a strong connection."

He still looked infuriated. "You're not exactly helping your case here, Montgomery."

"NO, but, I can promise you that what you saw was the ending of it, not the renewal of it. The last thing I said before I got out of his car was that you've done nothing wrong and I didn't want to hurt you. I have no reason to want what we've started to end and I want to see where we can go. I'm sorry Noel. I don't have anything else to say about it, except that I'm sorry."

Noel came back to her and sighed with his hands in his pickets. "You really started to care about him, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did." Aria took a tentative step closer to Noel.

"So if I want you to be my girlfriend, I probably shouldn't say anything about this to anyone?"

"Well, I'd appreciate that. I'd get in a lot of trouble as well as him. But really? You're willing to look past that?"

"Yeah, I think I can." Noel leaned down to wrap his arms around her and she stretched up to return the embrace. Just as they did this, a silver car came up to the stop sign that only Aria could see.

Ezra Fitz gave Aria a sad smile, one that she returned, and then he drove off. Who could know what the future could hold? Maybe someday she and Ezra would give it another shot, but for right now, she just wanted to see where this with Noel could go.

A/N: It's always bothered me. I'm totally for Ezria, but Noel's characterization bothers me. He was so sweet to Aria and then all of a sudden he's a huge jerk to everyone. I think his actions are a little justified when he goes to Ezra about the grade; he's hurt, his pride is wounded, his almost-girlfriend was just making out with their teacher in the teacher's car. He has reasons. Then with Mona and Jenna, he just completely changes personalities. I feel bad for the first season Noel. I'd like to think something would happen at the dance-a-thon and Noel would break up with Aria or something so that Aria and Ezra still have their cute date at the art show in the city, but I wanted to fix this moment. Since Aria could have helped him fix that English paper and then things would have ended more amicably, there's no need for his suspension or blackmailing Ezra.