Plants Are the Fat Ones
Disclaimer: I do not own Pretty Little Liars. I'm not making money off of writing this.
AN: No idea if this is going to be a one shot or something longer (which is a first for me). I was doing a re-watch of early episodes after the most recent finale and a story started forming in my head.
On with the show.
Enjoy.
I remember in biology, in 8th grade (or maybe 9th), when we were working on a project (something about feeding rats to a snake or something), Spencer tried to explain the food chain to me. The real one, not the one that Ali was always at the top of. Not the high-school one. Not the important one.
She talked about how plants were at the bottom of the chain just sucking up everything around them for nutrients. Then the vegetarians ate the plants to get at some of the food in the plants. The little carneys ate the vegetarians and got some of the food stuff in the vegetarians and then the bigger carneys ate the littler carneys, and on up the line.
It always made sense to me that the things at the bottom of the food chain would be the fat ones. Hear me out, because there are these plants just sitting around all day with the food just there at their fingertips. The stuff in the dirt just gets hoovered up by their little plant feet, the water falls right onto their little upturned faces, and something happens with the sun (I never really got it when Spencer tried to explain it) and obviously they aren't going to have put any work in to eat that up. And that's what they do all day.
Sure plants always have some little animal crawling all over them, like bunnies or like crickets or something, just sort of chewing them up and swallowing, and not really worrying about whether they look good in their new jeans, but the plants don't actually do anything about it. They don't make an effort. They just keep stuffing their faces because they've already given up on making their way up the food chain.
The animals (the vegetarians, the carneys, or the hermanvores it doesn't matter which) all have to compete. They have to go out and find the latest food faster than the other animals. And the further up the food chain they go, the more things they have to fight over.
So maybe I used to be a really fat carrot with bunnies nibbling at my hair and crickets crawling all over me (ewww), but Ali took me in, protected me, and she was so much further up the food chain than me, like twelve steps above me. Right around the point where she started trying to carry her message to others, that's when it became too much. That's when someone ...ate her I guess. Is it still cannibalism if it's just a metaphor?
Mona told me once, after she and I had climbed our way up a few steps (I think around the point where we would do anything to stay where we were), thatif we started slipping up, she and I would be right back at the bottom again. At the time I remember thinking fondly of being at the bottom, of eating my weight in Cheetos, and not really worrying about who was going to eat me next. I think, now, that maybe Mona was so far up the chain that she was starting to worry about all the carneys and hermans that would eat her on her way down.
Ali had told me over and over again (and Mona had agreed), "Don't look back, Han. You never know what might be gaining on you." I'd listened, just like with everything else that Ali told me, but I don't think I had ever taken it to heart. Mona had.
Spencer says that Mona said the whole "A" thing was never about revenge on Ali. Mona was just angry that we had taken away her only friend. That we had taken away me. But it started before we got back together again, didn't it. I don't think I even talked to any of the other girls before A...before Mona sent her first text. Maybe Mona looked back. Maybe she saw that Aria was back in town, that Spencer and I weren't really fighting, that the tension between Emily and I...was too heated. Maybe she saw her fat plant past catching up with her.
When they opened the door I expected Mona in a muzzle, giving me advice on which wines went best with which body parts. I expected her mouth to split wide open and for her to start asking me if I wanted to know which one of my friends were cowards when they died and whether I wanted to know how she had gotten these scars. That was kinda how I remembered her now; black hoody, black eyeshadow spread down her cheeks, and an eternal glare.
What I wasn't expecting was for a soft smile to spread over her face when I walked through the door. I wasn't expecting the uncertainty and joy and sadness and regret and...emotion in her eyes. I wasn't expecting her to slowly and uncertainly push herself up from where she sat slumped against a far wall. I also wasn't expecting her small little voice when she said; "Hanna?"
Was Batshit-Crazy-Mona soooo four personalities ago?
"Hi," I said with a little wave.
"You came," she said in a soft cheer.
"You hit me with a car," I hadn't expected to say that, but it had hit me just then. Mona was A. My best friend, who I...who I had loved, was A and A had hit me with a car, "You hit me with a car and I didn't even know anything and, yeah, now I'm here to visit you and I don't know why."
"I said I was sorry for that," I could tell even she thought that was a little...off.
"You wrote it anonymously on my cast," I replied in frustration, "While I was sleeping. I was afraid that the next time I closed my eyes Noel Kahn would kill me in my sleep."
"You actually thought I was Noel?" she asked with a little snort.
I felt a little smile tugging at the corner of my lips, but then I realized what we were talking about. Who I was talking to and my eyes started to water and then I realized that she was making fun of me. She was making fun of me for all of the wrong guesses I had made about A. Somewhere in that little snort were Jenna and Toby and Noel and Ian and Melissa and Garrett. There was probably a little bit of Naked-Kate in there too.
"Well Noel is really creepy, ok?" I realized that there was a little bit of whine in my voice when I said it and I may or may not have...kind of...stomped my foot a little bit.
Mona snorted again.
"Stop it," the whine wouldn't go away, "Monaaaaa."
"Fine. Noel is creepy," she said with that little sympathetic smile she would give me when I was feeling bad, "But the boy couldn't think his way out of a paper bag and I'm kind of amazing."
I glared at her.
"If I say so myself," she said quietly.
We both stood there shuffling our feet for a couple of minutes. Glances were shot at the door. Some thought drifted through our minds about how long the nurses were going to wait before they ushered me out. Were bat-shit crazy convicted attempted murderers/suspected actual murders even allowed visits like this?
"Why?" I finally asked. The thought had run through my head a thousand different ways. I had entire rants. Spencer had corrected the grammar on a few of them. But the whole thing boiled down to that one word.
"Why? Which 'why'?" Mona sighed, "Which 'why' do you want first?"
"Why any of it, Mona?" I cried out, "Why were you tormenting us for six months?"
"Because I lost my only friend," she said quietly.
"That's not true, Mona," I shot her a look, "One. I wasn't even on speaking terms with the others until after I had gotten my first A Text. Two. You never lost me."
"I have now," Mona's voice seemed to be disappearing as soon as it hit the room.
"Why am I here, A?" I scoffed in frustration. I saw her flinch. I'm not sure at which part. "Why did I come all the way out to the Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane –"
"It's called The Radley Institute," Mona whispered.
"Whatever," I dismissed, "Lucas has got Caleb on some big Batman kick. I guess it stuck in my head. Whatever it's called...why am I here Mona. Why did they call me and tell me that I should come down and...are you blackmailing them?"
"What?" Mona's head shot up and her eyes widened, "No!"
"Whatever," I said again, "Why am I here if you're just going to...what do you want, Mona?"
"I missed you," her voice was almost a coo.
"You hit me with a car!" I shouted. Somehow this seemed like the most important point to get across, "You didn't miss me then!"
"You hit me with a car too," Mona pointed out.
"I didn't know who you were," I pointed out, "Either time."
Mona opened her mouth to say something, but I'm not sure she even knew what it was. She opened her mouth once or twice. So much for insanity and intelligence induced super-powers. She opened her mouth a final time to respond and a half a syllable that might have been an "a" sound came out before I had a thought and talked right over her.
"And how come you always went so light on goddamn Aria?" I nearly shouted, glancing again at the door from which the nurses were suspiciously absent. I was really starting to think that Mona was blackmailing them. This couldn't be an acceptable visit. "You attacked Spencer. You poisoned Emily. You ran me over with a car. You gassed Emily. What did Emily ever do to you?"
"Hanna," Mona cried out softly.
"No," I held up my hand, "Call your blackmailed-nurse-minions. I'm done here."
"I didn't...it's cold in here at night," Mona might have been crying...a little, "Can you ask them to give me my gloves."
I looked down at her. She was tiny. She was sobbing. She was staring...at my breasts which was kind of weird, had she always stared at my breasts like this (it would explain a bit). But she was Mona. Mona had been there for me when no one else was. Mona helped me build myself up. Without Mona I wouldn't have gotten my lazy carrot ass up and bitten my first bunny's head off.
"I love you, Mona," I said sadly, "Please get better."
A/N: This didn't go exactly where I expected it to. In fact I wasn't originally going in bring anything from the finale, because quite honestly there were things in the finale that I didn't think that any story I would write would be able to work it's way around, but I think now I might know how to continue this even. To a point.