It was Saturday and the late-summer afternoon was beginning to darken with clouds. Spencer was littering a copy of Kanovitz's 13th edition on constitutional law with sticky notes when she heard the pang of knuckles on the glass door of the barn. She smiled when she saw Toby peeking out from behind a bundle of small white and green flowers, that bunched together in spheres.
"I grew them myself."
She smirked. "This late in the season? How many points is 'azaleas'?"
"Not as many as 'hydrangeas'."
"Oh." She stepped aside as an invitation.
Toby walked directly to the kitchen and retrieved a vase from the top cabinet.
Spencer leaned on the counter and followed his movements with her eyes. "So I'm not great with flowers, but I know plenty about apples."
He cocked his head as he filled the vase with water. "Apples?"
"It all comes down to property law."
"I see." He began cutting the flower stems.
"Did you bring your glasses?"
He placed the flowers in the vase and reached into the pocket of his plaid shirt to put them on. "I couldn't keep score otherwise."
"I'll get the board." Spencer's smile was wide as she practically bounced toward the living room, her textbook totally forgotten.
Toby shook his head as he watched her go as if he could shake the thought of her out of it. He couldn't, he never could.
Packed boxes were strewn about the loft, some had been re-opened, some were yet to be taped up.
"Do we have to do this now?" Caleb asked as he looked down at Hanna.
She was crouched in front of him with a blue tape measure slung over her shoulders, and a pin between her teeth. "Yes we do," she mumbled.
"What?"
She took the pin from her mouth. "Yes, we do." She nodded toward the cuffs of his suit pants. "The wedding is in less than a week and I'll probably have to hem these more than once, I'm just going to baste them now since you always seem to magically change height. Maybe if you didn't slouch so much and fidget."
"Emily and Alison won't even notice my suit pants."
She paused and looked up. "I'll notice them."
"We don't have the time to be doing this, you should have just taken these to a tailor."
"We do have the time, we have the time right now, that's why we are doing this right now."
"Ow!" he winced as she stabbed his ankle with a pin.
"Sorry," she said without a single touch of genuine regret.
"You have the girls' dresses done?"
She nodded. "You know, we still haven't had a proper ceremony."
"The house is taking longer than expected, Hanna, Lucy still isn't sleeping through the night, and we're already married!"
"The courthouse," she scoffed.
"The tent," he challenged.
She finished pinning his cuff and stood to look him directly in the eye. "Off."
He smirked at the command. "Yes, Ma'am."
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "I need to sew them."
Just as he removed the pants Lucy began to cry. "I've got it."
"Thanks, babe."
They kissed and Caleb shuffled through boxes toward the crib in nothing but his black boxer briefs and a t-shirt.
Hanna felt lucky, every day she felt like the luckiest girl in the world.
It was late afternoon when the clouds finally started to saturate and pour over with rain.
"So." Ezra started.
He had his arm lazily resting around his wife's shoulder as Funny Face quietly played on the tv.
"So," Aria added.
"What was that all about? What did the girls want earlier?"
"What do you think?"
"The book."
She shifted slightly so she could look at him. "Yeah. They were mad."
"You didn't publish it!" He was immediately defensive of her.
"I know, and I told them that. It's all fine. They apologized for the overreaction."
Aria turned back and they enjoyed "Bonjour! Paris."
"I'm sorry that the movie didn't work out," Ezra said.
"I'm not."
He kissed her head.
"They didn't understand the tone of the book at all…the intent. No amount of money could put our story in their hands."
"Mm, maybe another offer will come along someday."
"Maybe." She snuggled further into his chest. "But I'm happy. I'm happy here and with you. I don't need a movie."
"Neither do I."
"How did your meeting with Jess go? What did he think of the latest draft?"
"He said it made Kerouac's original scroll look minimalistic."
"Still too wordy, huh?"
"That's what I interpreted it to mean."
"I thought he liked the beats."
"He's less New York City beats and more Venice Beach beats."
She laughed. "The original East Coast-West Coast rivalry, huh?"
"I guess so."
"I love doing this with you."
He looked down at her and squeezed her shoulder. "Doing what?"
"Laying here, watching Fred Astaire singing in front of the Arc du Triumph."
He turned her in his arms and leaned over her in order to scoop her up into a passionate kiss. "Me too."
"I'll never get sick of it," Aria whispered through her newly dampened lips.
Emily kissed the inside of Alison's thigh and moved up her body slightly to rest her head on her fiancée's stomach.
Ali ran her fingers through Emily's hair as she was cradled between her legs. She felt the light sheen of sweat on Emily's brow.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Is nothing sacred? First I give you my body and now you want my thoughts?"
Emily rolled her eyes and rolled over. She ran the blonde curls between Ali's legs between her index and middle finger.
Alison grabbed her hand and brought it to her mouth before kissing Emily's palm sloppily. She sucked on the tip of her index finger, and then kissed her palm again, and then her wrist before squeezing it tightly and bringing it to rest over her heart.
Emily felt the swift beat pulse below her damp fingertips, felt the slowly steadying rise and fall of Ali's breath. "There you go again," she chuckled.
"What?"
"Making everything so dramatic. I had a vibe going."
"I'm known in some circles as 'vibe-killer'."
"Mm, I thought it was Vivian Darkbloom."
"No not now…, but ten minutes ago…."
"Oh yeah?" Emily laughed as she crawled the bed and kissed her soon-to-be wife.
"Mmhm."
"Are you ready to be Mrs. DiLaurentis-Fields?"
She looked down at Emily and made sure she had her attention. "I have been ready for over nine years."
"You mean to tell me you considered marrying me when we were fifteen?"
"I had considered it. I used to imagine how 'Alison Fields' would sound."
"You did not!"
"I did!"
"Just 'Fields'?"
Alison took a deep breath. "I uh—I've been thinking…"
"Mm?"
"I'm thinking I don't want to hyphenate it. I want to be Alison just-Fields."
"Why's that?"
"Do you mind?"
Emily kissed her head. "No, of course, I don't mind. I'm just curious why you don't want to keep DiLaurentis."
Alison looked to the wall and bit her lip.
After a long silence Emily didn't expect her to answer, nor did she want to pressure her to.
But then she finally spoke. "My father is no one to be proud of."
"He always took care of you," Emily offered weakly.
"Yeah, and just me. He didn't know how to handle Jason's addiction. Worse, he threw Charlotte away. He just threw her away like she was garbage, all because he thought she was wrong."
Emily stroked her hair.
"Maybe this all could have been avoided. Maybe he's the real villain."
"Maybe." Emily sighed and tucked Ali's head under her arm. "Fields is all yours if you want it. Just Fields."
"Your father was a really good man, Em. I would be proud to have his name, your name."
The pang of Spencer's phone caused Toby to look up from the score sheet. Spencer had started to fall asleep as he tallied her most recent word: "incontrovertible."
"Spence, your phone."
"It's closer to you," she mumbled.
He grabbed it from the table.
"Just read it out loud to me." Spencer yawned as he unlocked the phone. She was met with an unexpected silence. "What is it?" she prompted.
He shook his head and tilted the phone toward her.
Lucy was slung over Caleb's shoulder as she drooled onto a cloth.
"She drank the whole bottle?"
"Yup." He patted her back rhythmically.
Hanna's phone vibrated from the top of a closed box.
"Oh my God!"
"What is it?"
Aria was slicing into a rhubarb pie as her phone rested on the counter next to the tin. When she saw it light up she didn't bother to drop the knife and unlock it, she simply leaned over to peek at it.
When he heard the thunk of a pie hitting the floor followed by the clang of a knife, Ezra dropped the remote and rushed to the kitchen.
"Aria?! Are you okay? What happened?"
Blood trickled from her fingers just below the knuckles, and Ezra rushed to help her. She was too stunned to move or cry.
Lily and Grace wobbled back and forth between their two mothers, passing each other as they went.
"Good job, Lily," Alison said as she reached her and she rubbed her nose to her daughter's before turning her around so she could head back to Emily.
Their phones beeped in unison.
"Was that yours or mine?"
"Both, I think."
Emily reached for her phone on the coffee table.
"Em?"
"You too?"
Alison nodded.
"Spencer just texted."
"'SOS. Meet at the barn asap,'" Alison read from her own phone.
"So you all got it too?" Hanna asked as she entered the barn. She held her phone in the air.
"'Happiness is the Devil's dream,'" Spencer began.
"'Break time's over, Bitches,'" Alison added.
Emily held her phone to her face. "These past two years may have been quiet…"
"but now I know all your secrets," Hanna and Aria finished together.
