A/N: A Panna series, departing from cannon after 5x06. Still in progress, planning 24 chapters

I should mention that this may seem unsympathetic to Emily at times. Please remember that this story is point of view, and we are not seeing Emily's yet. Character opinions are not author opinions.

Sometimes there is no consolation, while at other times it comes later, unexpectedly. Until it does, though, everything hurts and there is nothing that can be done about it.

Paige had lost Emily. She could see that now. Emily still cared about Paige, but that just made it harder. Paige wanted to enjoy the time they spent together, the afternoons talking at school like old friends, hanging out with Sydney, delicately guiding the conversation away from the subjects which were just too painful. But Paige knew she and Emily couldn't be friends, could never be just friends. They were lovers or they were nothing, as anything in between would always feel wrong.

Paige couldn't even tell herself that Emily had simply fallen out of love with her, as she knew that wasn't true. Emily had decided that it had to end, and Paige could see Emily willing herself to not love her anymore. Sometimes Emily would relax and let her guard down, and look at Paige in the way that she used to, but then she would catch herself and pull back, keeping the wall between them.

Then things changed. Then it became easy.

If Emily had even told Paige herself it would have hurt, but it would have been different. She didn't though. It had to come from Mona.

Mona didn't even have a reason to tell Paige, other than spite. Paige was keeping her distance from Emily after having put herself in danger by divulging names from Mona's group to Emily. It was too small a school to avoid Emily altogether though, and Paige had started to notice. Of course Emily was around Alison a lot, but more than the other girls. Emily didn't look happy, but the way Alison would casually touch Emily while they talked made Paige nervous. Paige told herself she was just imagining it, that Emily would never go back to being Alison's favorite pet.

Then one lunch time, as Paige ate alone, willing herself not to look over to where Emily and Alison were, Mona sat down beside her.

"That seat's taken," Paige said, though they both knew she was lying.

"Isn't new love a wonderful thing," Mona announced.

"What are you talking about?" Paige asked.

"Haven't you heard?" Mona responded. "Emily and Alison are together! It's such a romantic story, Emily is reunited with her first love after and they rekindle their feelings for each other which had lain dormant all this time. I am just so happy for them. Sometimes fairy tales do come true."

Paige felt sick. She stood up, knocking over her plate, and ran for the exit. She could feel every eye on her, but she had to get out.

Paige didn't have to wait long to hear from Emily. That evening she got a text, and they met outside the McCullers back door.

"You don't owe me any explanation," Paige said. "We're not together anymore, remember?"

"I'm sorry, I should have told you," Emily insisted. "You shouldn't have had to hear it like that."

"Really?" Paige asked, incredulously.

"I… not many people know," Emily explained.

"Everyone knows, Emily," Paige responded. "What did you think would happen? You could start dating Ali and no one would notice?"

Emily looked away. For a moment Paige felt bad. She knew Emily had had to deal with living in the spotlight for so long, she really shouldn't be using that against her.

"I guess I didn't want to hurt you," Emily said.

"You wanted to pretend everything could be OK," Paige responded. "You wanted to go on imagining you could still be friends with me while you were with her."

Paige practically spat out the last word.

"Paige, please, it doesn't have to…" Emily began, but Paige cut her off.

"It does, Em, you know that," Paige declared, and that was it.

Emily looked at Paige for a moment, then silently turned and walked away, stooped down, defeated.

Paige watched until Emily was out of site, then slumped down on the chair next to her. For so long she had dreamed of her future with Emily. Even after they had broken up she still held out hope. Surely Emily would see what she was doing, how bad for her Alison was, how much Paige loved her. She imagined Emily remembering their plans to go to Stanford together, remembering the excitement they had both felt.

But Paige knew better now.

It had all been a mirage. Emily would always be special to Paige, and would always be her first love, the girl that had done so much for her, but Emily had made her choice, and Paige needed to accept that.

It was over. It really was all over.

Over the days and weeks that followed Paige would wake up each morning and think of Emily. Some mornings she would forget, and be happy for just an instant, before it all came back to her.

She tried to tell herself to stop, but she knew she couldn't. Emily had meant too much to her, and she couldn't just let go. She had a whole life ahead of her, a life with Emily, which was gone now. She had dreams which would never become real, scenes she had pictured in her head which would never take place.

There was nothing she could do, but she knew that she had to mourn the future which she was losing before she could begin to create a new one.

Hanna knew what the problem was, it was Alison. Everything had been fine before she came back. Hanna didn't even know why Ali had to come back, she seemed fine in New York. Hanna would love to live in New York.

But Alison had come back, and now everything was a mess. Spencer was stressing out all the time, Aria was back with Ezra so they hardly saw her anymore, and Emily was all Ali, Ali, Ali. If anyone didn't do what Alison wanted, or even did do what Alison wanted but without Emily's approval, Emily would go apeshit.

Hanna and Emily used to be best friends. If Hanna was being completely honest with herself, she used to have a bit of a crush on Emily. Like, not a full on… well, maybe, yeah. But anyway, since stupid Alison had come back Hanna practically needed permission from Emily to breathe in case it was some sort of problem for Alison.

And if that didn't suck enough, Hanna was single. Travis had dumped her because she kept flaking on him, but even that was really Alison's fault. Yeah, that was totally Ali's fault. Caleb had come back, but he was really weird now. It wasn't just the facial hair, he was all dark and brooding and stuff. Hanna missed him, but they just weren't clicking this time.

Now, Hanna had never been as obsessed with her boyfriends as someone like Aria was, but they were useful at times, like if you needed to complain about your friends. Hanna's was using her mom for this, but there were so many things she couldn't tell her, and she was pretty sure her mom was getting suspicious at the number of times Hanna had to say "Ah, nothing, don't worry". Anyway, after a while her mom would just roll her eyes and say "Hanna" in that tone of voice that Hanna knew meant to shut up.

Boyfriends were good for other things too, like hanging out, being drinking buddies, and fucking, all of which Hanna needed at the moment. Urgh, being single was so stupid, almost as stupid as arguing with your friends.

Why did they let Alison ruin everything like this? Why were they even helping her? If Emily hadn't got in the way Alison could have been off to who knows where by now and everything would have been better. All Alison gave them was drama and snarks, and her insults weren't even funny anymore. They should be making Alison grovel and beg for forgiveness. That would be really cool. After what she had done to them, they may as well get something out of it. Instead Emily was all "Stop picking on her, she said she's sorry", like yeah Em, that totally makes up for everything.

Sure, A was a pain in the ass, but A hadn't put them all at each others' throats like Alison had. Hanna had decided she would rather face A by herself then deal with any more of Ali's shit. As it turned out, though, as Hanna started to withdraw from the rest of the group, A was less of a problem for her.

Hanna was lonely though. The only people who she could talk to, who knew about what she was going through, would just yell at her and treat her like an idiot. Or they were evil, like Mona. Shit, Hanna even missed Mona.

This was getting serious. She needed to do something.

"Hey," Paige said.

"Hey," Hanna responded.

They were sitting across the table from each other in the furthest coffee shop from The Brew that Hanna could find while still in Rosewood. The last thing she wanted was Emily walking in. God, that would be just her luck too.

"So, how's it going?" Paige asked.

"Good," Hanna replied, nodding.

This was weird though. Hanna liked Paige, but they had never been good friends. It seemed like a good idea, but now that she was having a coffee with her former best friend's ex-girlfriend, not to mention a friend of her ex-boyfriend, it seemed like less of a good idea. As in, not actually a good idea at all.

"You can tell Emily I'm OK," Paige announced.

"What?" Hanna asked.

"Hanna, you suddenly call me out of the blue and want to catch up, I mean it's pretty obvious," Paige explained. "I know Em feels uncomfortable, and it's nice that she's thinking of me, but you can tell her I'm doing OK. I'm getting on with my life now and she doesn't need to worry about me."

Oh. It did kind of look like that, didn't it? Shit.

"No, that's not it," Hanna protested.

"Emily didn't send you?" Paige asked.

"No," Hanna insisted.

"She's not worried about me?" Paige asked.

"I don't know," Hanna responded. She was always relieved when she could answer a question honestly.

"What do you mean?" Paige asked. "Hasn't she said anything?"

"I don't know," Hanna replied. "I haven't seen her much recently."

Paige looked a little puzzled. Hanna decided she'd better come clean.

"Look, you think Alison is a bitch, right?" Hanna asked.

"I think she's a bully, there's a difference," Paige replied.

"Whatever," Hanna continued. "The thing is, she and Emily are together now, and you don't get Emily without Ali. I mean, even if Ali isn't there Emily's all snappy and strung out. It's so annoying."

"Are you and Em fighting or something?" Paige asked, clearly concerned.

"We're not anything," Hanna answered.

Paige was crestfallen.

"You two were best friends," Paige pointed out.

"Not anymore," Hanna said. "Not since she came back to town."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Paige said. "But there's nothing I can do. Like I told Mona, I'm not going to…"

"I'm not asking you to do anything," Hanna assured her. "I just need a friend right now, someone who understands. Someone like you."

"Of course, of course," Paige responded. "I'm here for you."

Hanna realized her hand was shaking. She must have been more nervous than she'd expected. Paige reached out and gently took her hand, holding it until Hanna calmed down. It was a relief.

"Thank you," Hanna said.