I'm in the process of being slightly overwhelmed by the response to this story - you've made me feel so special! I'm so glad that you enjoyed my first chapter, I'll have to work hard now to keep you all interested!

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favourited and followed. Reviews are seriously my winter sunshine, so please please know how much it means when you drop by and say something :)

And to the person that recognised that I'm British before checking my profile, I thank you profusely for crediting this to a 'dry, quick sense of humour' rather than for the persistent malapropism that I've saturated the entire first chapter with: calling it 'workshop' instead of 'woodshop'. You must've all noticed it but you were all way too polite to call me out and correct me, which I find all kinds of adorable. You guys, I totally thought that was what it was called! Woodshop though? Sounds kinda weird. I mean ... wood-chop maybe ... Ah well in my school they called it 'resistant materials' which makes even less sense. Like, resistant to what? My advances?

Anyway, now I've got that out of the way, have some more story. I haven't had a lot of time to proof-read, so I boldly and unashamedly claim ownership of all mistakes.

Chapter 2

Paige was nearly falling asleep by lunchtime. Her restless night hadn't done her any favours - she'd nearly dozed off to the iambic pentameter of a particularly tiresome Shakespearean sonnet in English to be jolted back into consciousness by a jab in the side from Pru and an accompanying note that read 'please close your mouth', for the same fatigue to strike again in chemistry, her exhausted collapse this time knocking a beaker of saline solution all over the desk, over her own work and over her lab partners shoes, and seeing as her lab partner was Jenna Marshall, she hadn't quite managed to shake the sense of impending doom that her reaction had instilled.

The meeting with Mona only served to make her feel even grumpier, and she dragged her heels as she made her way down the hall, unconcerned about punctuality, to arrive once the meeting was already ten minutes in. Mona eyeballed her as she walked into the room and flopped unceremoniously down onto the only vacant chair which she realised too late also happened to be the chair directly adjacent to Emily Fields.

'Nice of you to join us, Paige,' Mona said, her expression conveying the opposite.

'You're welcome,' Paige answered, stifling a yawn and trying not to look slightly to her right where Emily's bare thighs were in plain sight thanks to the shortness of the denim skirt she had chosen to wear.

'Seeing as you've missed the entire initiation session,' Mona laboured the point, 'I expect you'll have trouble keeping up. So raise your hand if you have any questions relating to the subjects we've already covered.' She held up a sheet of bullet-pointed topics, the first 5 of which were ticked.

'Yeah I have a question,' Paige answered, sitting up slightly in her seat, 'if you're here then who's making sure that it's still winter in Narnia?'

A small, effeminate snort to her right grabbed her attention, and she turned her head slightly to see Emily visibly suppressing a laugh. Forgetting herself briefly, she stared in bewilderment at the girl, momentarily dumb-founded by the beauty of her delicate features, the slight crookedness of her smile and the elegant curvature of her cheekbones, a strange sense of pride swelling in her chest as she realised her offhand comment had been the cause of this incredible natural event that she was now witnessing - Emily Fields smiling. If Paige had been looking out upon a meteor shower over the grand canyon, she couldn't have looked more thunderstruck.

Emily's lips moved as Paige stared at them. 'Don't let Mona get to you,' Emily was saying softly, her expression gentle. 'Here,' she said, offering her own copy of Mona's topic list to share.

Paige scooted her chair slightly closer to see, immediately regretting it as it meant she was suddenly able to catch the scent of Emily's perfume, and the faint fragrance of the shampoo she had used that morning, and when Emily leaned in even closer to speak to her, Paige almost had to move away.

'How come you're getting involved with all of this anyway?' Emily asked.

'You know ...' Paige struggled to find words, 'I've always been a fan of ...' she glanced down at the sheet of paper in Emily's hand, 'muted Autumn hues,' she read. 'Jeez, that sounds like a 90's grunge band doesn't it?'

Emily smiled again, and Paige felt like the most important person in the world.

Mona cleared the throat pointedly, casting a stern look towards the pair. Emily sat back up straight in her seat, sufficiently berated by the warning. Paige glared back at Mona before reluctantly leaning back as well, away from Emily, immediately missing her closeness.

It didn't last long. Only a few minutes passed before Emily sat forward again, this time placing her hand lightly upon Paige's knee to get her attention. She succeeded. In fact, there wasn't a single molecule in the fibre of Paige's being that hadn't jumped to attention at the gentle presence.

'Listen Paige,' Emily said with a whispered urgency. 'I'm sorry about how we left things.'

Paige tried to focus on Emily's words, but the feeling of the heat of Emily's hand through her jeans was almost eclipsing the ability of every other faculty she possessed. 'Uhm ...' she just about managed, 'it's OK.'

'No it's not OK,' Emily countered, sliding her hand slowly from Paige's knee, the faint tremor from the friction it caused making Paige clench her fists, her fingernails digging sharply into her palms. 'I was angry and I said some ...thoughtless things,' Emily continued. She dipped her head slightly, making sure that Paige was looking her square in the eyes before she said 'You didn't deserve them.'

Paige shook her head softly. I didn't deserve you, she wanted to say, but couldn't, and so didn't. Her gaze moved past Emily in avoidance to find Spencer Hastings staring plainly back at her, making no effort to disguise the fact that she had been watching the whole exchange. Caught off guard, Paige jerked sharply away from Emily, making the girl jump slightly at her sudden movement.

Emily looked around in confusion for her gaze to also land upon Spencer, who merely crossed her arms when Emily looked at her before turning her attention back to Mona.

Paige's heart thrummed fast in her chest. Did Spencer know as well? Was there anyone that Emily hadn't told?

'Right, everyone into groups,' Mona barked abruptly, forcing Paige's attention away from Spencer and Emily. The congregation stood up slowly around her and Paige waited for Emily to stand before reluctantly heaving herself out of her own chair.

'Spencer, Hannah, Aria, Emily,' Mona reeled off the names, 'over here,' she pointed to where Emily and Paige were stood. The girls all shuffled over, grouping around Emily in that familiar way, in the way Paige always used to see Emily - through her impenetrable force field of friends.

Spencer purposely knocked shoulders with Paige as she passed, causing her torso to flail backwards at an awkward angle. 'Hey!' she said crossly, resisting the urge to shove the girl back.

'...Spencer,' Emily said, uncertainly, like she wasn't sure what was happening but didn't like the look of it anyway.

'Sorry,' Spencer said, her tone flat. 'Didn't see you there.'

'I'm sure,' Paige answered, folding her arms and rooting herself to the spot.

'Tell me Paige,' Spencer continued, rising to the unspoken challenge, 'have you administered any more impromptu baptisms lately?'

'Spencer,' Emily hissed warningly, now sounding sure she had been right about not liking the look of it.

'What?' Spencer asked with a shrug, as if her question perfectly reasonable.

Paige wondered if it was possible to hate herself any more than she already did in that moment. She still had nightmares about that night. The force of Emily's body rearing beneath her hand as she pushed down, the sound of the desperate splashing as her arms pin-wheeled frantically, slapping the water upwards to fleck lightly upon Paige's face and arms, the feeling of being absolutely in control of the thing that had tormented her for as long as she could remember, to realise too late that it was still just controlling her, like it always had. Speechless, she just looked down at her feet.

Fortunately Mona broke through her self-pitying fug of misery and loneliness, as well as breaking the confused stares of Hannah and Aria and the respectively defiant and incredulous ones of Spencer and Emily, by presenting her with her own copy of the list she must've given out at the beginning. 'I've made some notes for you on this one Paige,' Mona pointed out, 'just in case you had a bit of trouble following it.'

Paige snatched it from her grasp. 'Weird,' she said, scanning it quickly for dramatic effect, 'it just says 'Mona is great' over and over again in your handwriting.'

Mona smiled a poisonous smile at her. 'What are you doing in this group anyway Paigey?' she asked. 'This is the models group,' she gestured around her. 'You're over there,' she pointed to the other side of the room, 'with ... the help.'

Paige clenched her jaw. 'Sorry,' she began, 'I thought this was the dead-behind-the-eyes-automatons group. My mistake.' She considered shoulder-barging Spencer back in retaliation on her way past, but decided against it.

She also decided to ignore the faint plea she heard Emily make for her to come back, half-certain that she had imagined it anyway.


'So how did it go then,' Paige asked, flopping onto her bed and bouncing slightly as the mattress resisted her weight. 'Tell me all - no item omitted, no matter how sordid or incriminating.' Between lessons and the fashion show meeting Paige hadn't had a chance to ask Pru properly about her date at school.

'It went really well,' Pru answered, following Paige into her bedroom and sitting down, slightly more gracefully, on the edge of her bed. 'I really like him ... I think it went ... well, it actually went ... it was OK,' Pru concluded finally.

Paige frowned at the rundown. 'It either went really well or OK,' she noted, 'it can't be both.'

'Well, dinner went really well and the movie was good and he walked me home and leant me his jacket when I got cold,' Pru listed.

'Sounds good so far,' Paige observed.

'But then when we got to my front door he leaned in and I thought he was going to kiss me,' she paused, shifting slightly with embarrassment.

Paige quirked an eyebrow. 'And?'

'So I leaned up to like ... accept the kiss, but it turned out he wasn't trying to kiss me at all. He was trying to get a better look at this apparently 'really rare moth' that decided to land on my door. So ... as I leant up he sort of whacked me out of the way with his chin.'

Paige's hands rushed up to her mouth to disguise her amusement. 'You .. uh,' she composed herself slightly, 'you got chinned?'

'I got chinned,' Pru confirmed, glumly. 'In the face.'

Paige snorted. 'Well, that's what you get for dating someone with such a ruggedly handsome chiselled jaw. I told you not to date a quarterback.'

'He was so embarrassed,' Pru continued. 'He tried to kiss me then, but I was already digging in my bag for my keys so I could retreat into my house and, like, flush my head down the toilet so he just bumped into the top of my head.' Pru gazed sadly into space. 'We just ended up hi-fiving in the end.'

Paige grinned. 'You got a goodnight hi-five?'

'Romantic huh? What about you anyway,' Pru asked, changing the focus from herself, 'I haven't heard anything about your love-life since that sham-date with Sean.'

Paige cleared her throat awkwardly and sat up slightly. 'You haven't heard anything because there's nothing to report,' she stated as nonchalantly as possible.

Pru narrowed her eyes at her. 'So all those times you blew me off last month for family dinners, last-minute swim meets and visits to Aunts that I know full well don't exist weren't just elaborate excuses to sneak off to some secret romantic tryst with a mystery hottie?'

Paige clenched her fists anxiously into the bed sheets. 'I honestly have no idea what you mean,' was the only response she could manage. A lie. And, worse than that somehow, was the fact that she knew that Pru knew she was lying. The girl could always see straight through her instantly. It rendered it almost absurd that Pru could pick up on Paige's specific brand of ill-considered and unsubstantiated fibs so easily and yet not see the biggest one of all, the one she lived every day. She often wondered if Pru just confronted her directly about it whether she'd admit it or not. Sometimes she just wished that she would, because surely it would be easier than saying it out-loud herself. But right now almost everything seemed easier than that.

'Come on Paige,' Pru implored, her voice conveying almost a fatigue at having to work so hard for the information, 'I saw your face light up every time you got a text from that unnamed number. And I know that you can barely stand to be in the same room as your parents at the moment, let alone have six formal dinners a week with them.' Pru sighed in frustration as Paige just stared back at her with the wide eyes of someone who couldn't possibly imagine how they'd been found out. Pru changed tactic. 'Look, whoever they are,' she began, 'just ... if they're important to you and you care about them then you don't have to keep them a secret, OK?'

Paige sighed at the gentleness of Pru's appeal, feeling like she should give her at least something in response. 'OK ...' she relented, 'I was seeing someone ... kind of. But ...' she ran a hand through her hair and thought about how best to word it, 'it didn't work out. They um ... I ... I wasn't ready for that kind of relationship,' she managed in the end. It wasn't a lie, for once. But it still didn't make her feel any better.

'What kind of relationship is that?' Pru asked, her interrogation clearly not over yet.

'I don't know,' Paige snapped, 'a serious one I guess.'

Pru frowned, and Paige recognised it as the brief moment of processing and consolidation before she launched into more questions.

'It doesn't matter anyway,' Paige interjected pre-emptively before they started, 'they're seeing someone else now so it's ... it's like totally over,' she tried unsuccessfully to keep the sadness from her voice.

'It's totally over but you're still not going to tell me who it is,' Pru summarised, unimpressed.

Paige paused for a second, looking down at her fingers that were nervously playing with the seam of a pillow case before looking up again. 'Yeah, that's correct.'

Pru huffed. 'Well that's not really good enough is it? They'd better be like ... a government operative for you to be being this covert about it all.'

Paige forced a smile, but she felt hot and sick and prickly all over. She desperately wanted to tell Pru that she'd fallen rather spectacularly hard for a beautiful, kind, unspeakably sexy and pretty much perfect girl, and then managed to mess it all up in the usual dramatic fashion that she always managed to mess things up, and then she wanted to cry a little bit, and mope a little bit, and feel gratuitously sorry for herself for a while, and have Pru comfort her and say nice things like 'it's not so bad,' and 'cheer up,' and all the other useless but well-intentioned platitudes that best friends are supposed to say when you inflict chaos and pain and heartache on yourself due to your specific and inexorable ability to stand directly in the way of your own happiness.

She took a deep breath.

'Pru?' she asked softly. The girl looked up from the magazine she had begun flicking through in Paige's silence. Paige swallowed, looking straight into the deep, kind, trusting eyes of the girl she had been best friends with since kindergarten.

'Yeah?' Pru prompted, breaking the silence that had begun to stretch between them.

No. She couldn't do it.

'Um ... nothing,' Paige said, 'nevermind.'

Pru fixed her with an unreadable gaze for a few long seconds before sighing sadly and looking back down at the magazine. 'God, when Botox goes wrong it really does go wrong doesn't it?' she mused after a few moments, studying a double page spread detailing bungled attempts at plastic surgery. She lifted the magazine up to her face for closer inspection. 'Seriously, if it didn't say her name underneath that picture you could easily mistake her for the lost piece of concept art that inspired the make-up forDr Frank-N-Furter'.

Paige used the distraction to blink hard a few times to rid her eyes of their brimming tears and tried to swallow down the lump in her throat.