A/N: This chapter is somewhat dark, but I expect the tone of this story to lighten as it progresses. This chapter takes place during episode 5x23 and it sees both Alison and Emily be far too hard on themselves.


"Someone said it was raining, is it raining back home?"

It was a simple question and yet Emily found it much more difficult to answer than the first.

Emily couldn't breathe then, as so many realizations overwhelmed her. She had tried not to think about what prison must be like for Alison, and now she was confronted with it. Ali couldn't tell if it was raining from her cell, where there were no windows and the concrete walls were too thick to hear even the hardest pelting of water during the worst of storms.

It was such a simple question. The answer fell in sheets outside her window as she watched and yet she couldn't find it right away. "Yes, it—it's raining."

"Home" was the word that hurt the most. It was where Ali could be right now, where she'd ran from for two years. Emily dragged her back only to send her away again.

The prison hallway was cold. It was shrouded in darkness from the impending "lights-out" and this darkness approached her slowly as each set of fluorescents were extinguished one-by-one and narrowed her surroundings like shovels of dirt. The guard cleared his throat, and Ali used every ounce of precious energy she had left to say "goodnight, Em." Being able to speak to her was a small and welcome luxury.

She ambled toward the guard and when she reached him he grabbed her arm like a tourniquet and forced her to walk faster, dragging her along. With each click of his feet, the ticking of the analog clock on the wall seemed to get louder.

Emily felt nauseous when she hung up, her guilt and sadness and anger churning in her stomach, but she swallowed air desperately and refused to let the sickness overtake her.

Once her cell door slammed shut Alison fell to her knees by the steel toilet bowl and vomited. She was left with nothing but her memories for company night after night and her regrets poisoned her. Part of her felt like she deserved this, if not because of all of her childhood offences then because she couldn't just tell the girls, Emily at least, the truth about her pursuit of A. The other part of her wanted to be angry with them, but it was too exhausted to bother with the feeling. She wasn't mad at Emily, but she was utterly brokenhearted.

Emily had hurt Alison badly and she struggled to find sleep as she laid in her bed. Ali shouldn't have lied though, right? She should have just been honest.

She tried to be honest with Emily, she thought. One last effort. She was too late, or Emily was too pig-headed. She couldn't settle on an explanation and she fought her blanket in search of a comfortable position.

Emily couldn't find one, but she eventually fell asleep. It was not restful, her head was littered with nightmares.


Alison stood under the stream of the public prison shower, readying herself for court in the morning. The water cascaded over the curves of her body, and no one kept watch, no guard stood by. Emily approached her, sliding her hands slowly around her waist. Alison leaned back against her body. She was safe, Emily would keep her safe. Steam wafted behind them, and as it floated back Emily floated with it. She saw herself standing there, embracing Alison. She wore a black hoodie. Emily wore a black hoodie and she wasn't protecting Alison, she was strangling her. Ali clawed at her neck, desperately trying to pry Emily's fingers loose.

Emily awoke and ripped her sheets off of her sweating body. She struggled for air as if she could feel Alison's pain. Her whole childhood had been spent trying to protect Alison, but she wasn't her protector, not anymore. She was her attacker.

Alison was curled up tightly. She laid close to the wall in the hopes that she might fall through it and find a portal to a less painful dimension. Dreams of never seeing Emily again haunted her. If she was found guilty, would Emily visit? Her visits would get less and less frequent and Ali's memory of her face would gradually blur and fade into...

Blackness was what she saw when she opened her eyes. The dark wall was all she saw. She couldn't tell if morning had come yet. After all, she'd done wrong, and all the times she'd broken Emily's heart, she should have anticipated her betrayal. She had one last chance with Emily and she destroyed it with dishonesty. She didn't deserve Emily, she deserved to remain an inmate, totally untouchable.

The morning had come and Alison swore she could hear the distant echo of a gavel falling to its block as she changed out of her jumpsuit.

Bang!

The front door fell closed behind Emily and she rushed down the front steps with her hands buried in her pockets. The morning sun was inconsiderately bright and glinted off of Emily's car as she unlocked it. She could apologize, but she would only get a real chance to if Alison was found innocent, because what would her apology mean if she delivered it through plexiglass? She finally had a chance with Alison and she destroyed it. She didn't deserve her. She would have to stay away. Emily had already shaken Ali to the core and shouldn't touch her lest she shatter.