I just want to say a big, whooping thank you for the support of this story just within the first chapter! I see this fic as my little baby and can't wait to see how it blossoms. With such a touchy subject as it is, I can only hope I can do it justice while bringing forth a new world for you guys!

Enjoy this little treat!

CHAPTER #2: Partners of the Night

Italics means thoughts, emphasized word or action. Bolded is a flashback. (….) is an indication that time has passed.

"It's been a couple of weeks since the first day of this new tutoring session came and went and god…it feels like I signed up for another fucking course."

"What's wrong with it?"

"What's not wrong with it? Its science entangled with math and compounds and….numbers. The reason I paid for this tutor was to alleviate my pains with the course but it just feels like I got another lecturer going just as hard as my original professor that I need help from."

"I'm so glad I decided not to go to college." Hanna boasts proudly. "I'm pretty sure I would have dropped out in the first semester."

"What's your tutor's name again?" Aria's voice pops into the conversation.

"Emily Fields." Alison informs her as she skims through her different set of mascaras until she comes across her Maybelline falsies. Standing in front of a mirror on the wall of her dorm room with her phone on speaker, she unscrews the cap, pumping the brush several times before she starts applying them to her lashes.

"If I'm not mistaking, I think she's friends with Ezra."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure I heard him mention that they're both were going to try tutoring this year but it was a one-time thing that he brought it up. That reminds me, I'm staying over Ezra's tonight and there's a chance my new laptop is coming in today so if you can put it in my room? I'll get it to tomorrow."

"Okay." Finishing her eyes, Alison stations her mascara back in its organized location and looks over her freshly made up face, making sure everything is perfectly done. "But I'm still trying to figure out a way to do this."

"You can put it on my desk, its fine."

"No, I meant the whole Noel situation." Alison corrects her. She picks up a lip crayon and goes to put it on when she noticed how dull it was. She grabs her pencil sharpener and begins twisting to get to a point she was satisfied with.

"It's easy to break off things with him but we're going to be seeing each other so frequently afterwards. I don't actually care about ending it but I really don't have time for awkward moments."

"What did you even see in him?" Hanna's disgusted grimace could be practically heard over the phone.

"It's not like we made it exclusive or anything. It was basically a trial run. A test drive." Alison mutters as she glides on her matte mulberry nude lip color. "We just went out a couple times, nothing more. I liked how good he is with numbers and how proficient he is when it comes to money whether it's saving it or how to double it. He's someone you want around when it comes to investments and being up on the latest information. Not to mention he's basically doing my math work."

"Investments?" Hanna repeats with immense doubt. "It's not like he's going to tell you which stock is going to be the next Apple or Microsoft and that you should invest in it."

"I mean, he could. You never know." Aria defends on his behalf.

Alison presses her lips together to spread the color evenly before she pokes her mouth to check out she looked. Satisfied with her choice, she stacks the lip crayon back in her collection.

"It's just that he can be so damn immature sometimes. It's like he never left high school and it's so tiring to be around."

"So, how are you going to do it?" Aria asks.

"Just say I'm in a place where things are not going to work relationship wise because I'm focusing all my attention on my studies. Or whatever bullshit they say in the movies." she fluffs her loose curls in place, teasing and splitting her hair down the middle. "But I need to get this over with before he gets any ideas like us being a couple or something."

…

"So, going back to what we were talking about earlier-" Emily swiftly erases the whiteboard with a few hurried strokes. Pushing her glasses up with her index finger, she pops open two different colored markers. "The anhydroglucose unit, also known as AGU, refers to a single sugar molecule in a polymer. Each anhydroglucose unit is reduced to its functional groups which is three hydroxyl groups per AGU."

Leaning her head against the palm of her hand, Alison quietly sighs, tapping her pencil against her notebook. Her eyes glances over to the right to Shana's side and noticed almost the entire page being covered in a neat and organized fashion, following Emily's exact notes with apparent ease. She lifts her head and casually stretches, turning her sights to the left with Sydney's notebook appearing similar to Shana's: a full page of notes. Alison takes a peep down at her own work and sees how she barely made it halfway in her book before she started absent-mindedly drawing cartoon-like smiley faces.

Fuck.

"So, to keep this relatively simple, the polymers of glucose, like the cellulose, is formed by the anhydroglucose molecule that has lost the elements of water that is –H and –OH." Emily starts drawing out a visual of the chemical compound to aid her explanation. "That's why anhydroglucose is used to describe the polymers of glucose. Cellulose is formed from D-glucose units which is condensed through 14 glycosidic linkages which looks like….this."

Stepping away from the board to let everyone see the figure she created, she hops back into frame again for a quick breakdown as she grabs a third colored marker and labels the link accordingly.

"The beginning section will always be known as the non-reducing end. This is the cellulose unit, this is the anhydroglucose unit, and this at the end is known as the reducing end. Pretty easy to remember."

Emily looks out towards the students who were silently glancing between the board and their notebooks to copy all that she's written out. She takes a look at her wrist to check for the time when she sees that their two hours were about up as the clock ticks at 6:58pm.

"Alright, so if there aren't any questions about anything we covered today, we can call it a night." she smiles at the undergrads. Everyone starts packing up as Emily awkwardly juggles the handful of markers and whiteboard eraser she had in her hands before she put them away. Alison sluggishly closed her books and slid her supplies into her bag while everyone around her starts getting out of their seats. She makes brief eye contact with Noel who sat at the far end of the table, however, he pushes in his chair and walks away without any words being spoken.

It wasn't long until the classroom emptied out with just Alison being left. She slings her bag onto her shoulder, watching Emily erase the board clean with the help of a spray, debating on whether she should bring up this issue she's facing.

Finishing the removal of all her work, Emily turns around to see Alison standing idle as if she was waiting for her acknowledgement.

"Hey, Alison. Can I help you with anything?" she asks dusting her hands.

"I, uhm… I have a concern with these tutoring sessions." Alison bluntly speaks which pulls an almost startled expression out of Emily.

"Am I going too fast? I'm so sorry. This is my first teaching gig and I try to break it down in a language we all can understand. I'll slow down if you'd like." Emily ends up rambling beyond what she wanted to say as she's already apologizing for a mistake she's doesn't know the details of.

Alison shakes her head to stop her. "It's not about the speed. It's more of just retention and grasping the concept. What we're learning now, everyone else gets it and I don't want to hold up the group because I'm still not understanding what is being explained."

"Aren't they your friends?" Emily crosses her arms as she steps over to a nearby stool and props herself onto the seat. "I'm pretty sure they won't jump you if you ask for clarification."

"They're not my actual friends. Not in that sense anyways." Alison explains. Emily gives her a surprised brow raise which prompts Alison to define more in-depth. "Well, let me rephrase...we all are acquaintances in the same class. Most of them already have an established friendship but we all just so happened to be in the same class and created this circle to help
each other with work. The only person I know is Shana but that's because we're childhood friends."

"Oh. I was under the impression that you and Noel were dating. I mean that's what I thought, anyways."

"No, we're not together. That was us just being friendly."

Emily slowly nods her head as she processes the information of Alison and Noel just being friendly when some of the actions they shared appeared to be more than just being friendly.

"Right." she looks up at Alison with a tight-lipped smile.

"So, that brings me to the question that I have now - If it would be possible for an extra private session to help me more in depth with everything." Alison steadily trots on her new proposition, optimistic that Emily will respond the way she hopes.

"Uhm….yeah." Emily uncrosses her arms, momentarily looking off to the side in brief thought before she rubbed her hands on her slim-fit jeans. "Yeah, I can do that. It would be extra, though..." she slightly grimaces.

Dammit, Alison mentally curses. Her plan was that Emily wouldn't bring up the talk of more money being added but, of course, it's one of the first things that enters the conversation. Looks as if it was time for Plan B: negotiation.

"I'm already paying almost 20 an hour. I'm not that far behind to the point of breaking away from this session with another. I really just need extra clarification, that's all. I mean, this is like learning a foreign language. It's pretty hard to fully get on the first time around. Or the second." she forces a chuckle to possibly lighten her demand, in hopes that Emily will understand her plight.

Alison gives her a heartening smile as Emily stares back at her with a twisted mouth off to the side, biting on the inside of her bottom lip. There is an awkward silence between the two as Alison stands in front of Emily waiting for an answer. An answer that swings in her favor.

"Okay." Emily politely caves in. "We can do that. Free of charge."

A wave of relief flows through Alison's body as she releases a quiet exhale after unknowingly holding her breath. She bows her head, graciously. "Thank you so much. I really appreciate this."

"No problem. You passing your class is my main priority." Emily slouches with her head tilted onto her shoulder. "When do you want to start?"

"...Tonight is fine with me." Alison readily replies without much hesitation. However, where Alison was prepared, Emily was not.

"Right now?"

"Mhmmm. If that's okay with you."

"Uhh…." Emily stands up from her stool a little too quickly, almost knocking it over with a kick of her white, low top canvas shoes. Catching the stool from wobbling and adjusting herself accordingly, she stands with her hands behind her back, nodding repeatedly. "Okay. We can start now."

With a spin to turn back to her seat, Emily's eyes catches the small lift of the ends of Alison's dark red, school, plaid skirt. Her sight trails down to her black thigh-high socks with the flats she wore that left a space of skin where the short skirt ended and the brim of the socks began. She quickly diverts her face to look away before she was caught staring inappropriately. She definitely doesn't want to be one of those tutors.

Alison pulls out her chair in the center of the horizontal table and lays her bag on top, retaking out all her books and writing utensils. Completing her outfit of the evening with a beige, cable knit sweater under her open, cranberry blazer, Alison flips her hair over her shoulder as she drew out a small cosmetic bag she had carried around with her.

"I hope you don't mind me eating." Emily remarks aloud, turning to Alison with a takeout box she packed. "I didn't have much of a lunch today."

Alison shakes her head, encouraging her as she opens her compact makeup mirror. "You're fine, don't worry. It's late anyways."

Emily thanks her and makes her way towards a microwave that luckily the professor she's borrowing the classroom from so happens to have instead of her having to walk all the way to the dining hall. As she slides her lip balm onto her lips to make sure they weren't chapping, Alison's eyes grace over her mirror to Emily standing in the corner of the room, pressing buttons on the microwave to heat up her food. The choice of double denim wasn't a bad one with the comfortable selection of jeans with a denim shirt tucked in the front and unbuttoned to show a little at the top. It said, I'm relaxed and easy-going while her glasses said, I'm teetering on the scale of "trying to look cool because I'm insecure about my appearance" and "I'm willing to work on a solo project for hours on end with a cup of coffee by my side because I'm that focused".

A part of Alison wondered if they were real glasses or merely fake ones for Emily to make herself appear smarter.

"So...what exactly are you having trouble with?" Emily asks when her meal was done, grabbing a plastic spork and a small bottle of a Naked fruit smoothie from her bag.

"Basically this entire chapter." Alison switches from her makeup to her school work as Emily walks in direction. "But to put it simply, what we were going over right now completely lost me. All these equations and having to solve them? Clueless."

"Let's see..." Emily pulls out a chair next to Alison, settling her stuff down to the side, and sits down with her body facing her as she peeks over at her textbook. She flips through a few pages, skimming over the words to figure out where she should begin to help.

"Thank you for this again." Alison looks at Emily, never being this close to her before. A soft, clean scent wafts from her and isn't anything but pleasant on Alison's nose. Emily turns to her with an easy grin, her big, expressive eyes catching the softness of Alison's mulberry colored lips before she swiftly locked with her glowing blue eyes.

"Let's help you understand all this mumbo jumbo, okay?"

...

Tucking her hair behind her ear, Emily finishes writing out a problem on the whiteboard and turns around to Alison who stares ahead with pencil in hand, not moving. A few long moments pass by with Emily patiently waiting for Alison to verbalize the steps of solving but it never comes.

"Fuck!" Alison tosses down her pencil in frustration, putting her head in her hands. "I can't get this."

"Yes, you can, I promise." Emily reassures her softly with an empathetic frown.

"No, I can't." Alison moves her hands up from her face to smooth her hair back with a groan. "We went over this eight times."

"And we'll go over this eight more times until you do. You're focusing on the small details which is stopping you from seeing the big picture. Here-" Emily moves to another space on the board and scribbles out an alternative, less complex equation.

"You know the steps to this. Tell me what to do in order to calculate the formula mass. What's the atomic mass of Pb?"

Alison sighs and takes a glimpse down at the copy of the periodic table that was printed in her book. "207.2" she sluggishly replies.

"Alison." Emily looks at her, disappointingly. "We talked about this. If you answer with a negative attitude, it only makes working this out harder because you're not into it. I know you hate this but a boost in your voice will help you because your brain won't see this as a chore. Now, again, what is the atomic mass of lead?"

"207.2." Alison straightens her back, answering firmer than before and not as if she was dying.

Emily writes the number on the board underneath the new equation. "Good. What about nitrogen?"

Alison takes a moment to find the element on the table. "14.00674."

"And oxygen?"

"15.9994."

"Alright. Now with our new numbers, you can substitute them in the place of this problem. What is 207.2 plus two times 14.00674 plus six times 15.9994?"

"Well, this is when a calculator comes into play because I'm not a barbarian." Alison mutters as she opens the app on her phone. Emily silently chuckles at the remark.

"The formula mass is 331.2."

"331.2, good, good." Emily writes the answer down with her blue marker.

They continue to break down the problem, step by step, with Emily allowing Alison to lead the way - sometimes having to push her in the right direction. With lots of patience and nearly twenty extra minutes of going back and forth between the practice question and the original, they arrive at the very end of the problem where Emily is hands-off and forces Alison to finish it off on her own.

"With the new rewritten equation, "u" is the total uncertainty we are trying to solve for. What is it?" she asks before she takes a sip of her drink.

"I don't know." Alison moans, huffing back into her chair, rolling up the sleeves of her sweater as her blazer rests behind her seat. "Can we call it unsuccessful night and go? It's probably like midnight by now."

"I will hold you hostage until we finish this. You are right there!" Emily laughs desperately with her constant shove of urging Alison to complete her work. Something she has been doing this entire private session.

"I'm not right there. This is difficult. I don't know these numbers, I don't know how to move them around, I don't know how to flip them, or find these masses or uncertainties or concentrations. I don't fucking know any of this. God, I should have never signed up for this class." Alison sulks as she bows her head in defeat.

Emily stares at her somberly, feeling the overwhelming air of exasperation radiating from her from where she sat. It is then when Emily grabs her stool and walks up to Alison's table, placing it right in front of her and taking a seat. Alison lifts her head just when Emily removes her glasses, folds them, and rests them on her lap. She gazes right into Alison's eyes.

"Don't think about the problem." she orders her gently. "Literally. Don't think about anything regarding it."

"Are those real glasses?" Alison asks curiously with a sense of naiveté in her voice.

"Alison-"

"Sorry. You said not to think about the problem..."

Emily fights the urge to smile at the cuteness of the random moment as she tries keeps a serious facade.

"Listen to me. The range can be calculated with the propagation of error method using the equation we labeled as C. We rewrote it with by replacing the total uncertainties with the relative uncertainties. With substituting, how do we find the total uncertainty?"

Staring back at Emily with a pout, Alison lets the wheels in her head turn as she thinks only about what Emily asks of her. They stay silent as she takes a glimpse at her notebook where she copied all the problems from the board that they worked on. She turns a page back to where they solved a previous step and skimmed for certain numbers.

"We need to substitute 1 over 5195 for RE-B...1 over 2500 for RE-VF500...1 over 7692 for RE-T and... 1 over 1250 for RE-VT100." Alison begins explaining the phases.

"Yes. And then what?"

"Then...it should come out to..." Alison returns to her calculator app again, looking back and forth between the equation and the numbers to simulate the math problem. "9.2 times 10 to the power of negative four."

Emily jumps up from the stool, grabbing her glasses and tossing them onto her face as she strides it quickly to the whiteboard, writing the numbers Alison gave her.

"And then times 100, the uncertainty would be in the final concentration of...?" she eagerly waits for Alison to do the calculations.

"The uncertainty would be in the final concentration of 130.0 parts per minute."

"And if you take the ppm and times it by 0.09 over 100...?!"

"The uncertainty in the final concentration is...plus-minus 0.1, making the concentration range 130.0 ppm plus-minus 0.1 ppm."

"BOOM!" writing and circling the answer, Emily drops the marker, raising both arms in the air. "She did it, ladies and gentlemen. She actually did it!"

Alison self-congratulates herself, clapping her hands together when Emily strolls up to her with her hand extended.

"I told you you'll get it!" she high-fives her with a genuinely excited smile.

"Ugh, there was no way in hell I was going to get this during the group session." Alison begins putting her stuff away, internally glad that this was finally over.

"Don't ever be afraid to ask questions." Emily reminds her. "You are paying for this tutoring. That's why I'm here. Might as well get your money's worth. Work me until you squeeze every drop of information you can out of me." she jokingly laughs as Alison smirks at the comment and stands up, stretching out her arms and legs by rising to the tip of her toes.

Emily checks down at her watch the see the time a little over 9:30pm and turns to clean off the board after another dynamic session. Alison watches her as she throws on her blazer and fixes her hair. The smirk remains on her face when she drops her eyes to the floor.

"I actually like this way better to tell you the truth…" she speaks. "The personalized attention and pacing? Maybe I should do these kinds of sessions instead…"

Emily puts the markers and eraser away and leans against the professor podium with a light and blissful face. "I'm here for whatever choice you make, Alison. The goal here is to exceed your expectations and to prove to you that science is not thatbad."

"Hm." Alison pokes out her lips in thought as she straps her bag onto her shoulder and begins walking slowly towards the door.

"You know you don't have to be all formal and call me Alison, by the way. Staying out late studying and eating..." she points the garbage where the takeout box found itself after an hour of its initial opening. "What was that again?"

"Ethiopian food." Emily gladly informs her, smiling.

"Studying late with Ethiopian food...I think we're past that level of formalities." she reaches the door, pressing her body against the frame as the corner of her lips crease upwards with a twinkle in her eyes.

"You can call me Ali."

Emily nods, accepting the new permission. She goes to officially end their session with a goodbye but something was dying to come out of her. She knows she shouldn't bring it up and just leave it alone but it came to attention the moment she made notice with it the way she did. She fought herself harshly within those three seconds of silence.

"Can I ask you a question, Ali?" Emily emphasis the nickname tauntingly.

"Only if I can ask you a question in return." Alison innocently challenges back.

Do NOT ask, Emily. It is none of your business. Say goodnight and keep it moving.

"Don't..." she begins, "Don't you think it's a little cold to be wearing an outfit like that?" the curious part of herself pushes through all reason as she lazily points to Alison's ensemble that was a mixture between class and playfulness.

Alison glances down at her outfit, mostly at the short plaid skirt and thigh-high socks that she specifically picked out to wear. Her smile goes from polite to more devious as she slightly twists her body side to side.

"I have thick blood. This cold doesn't bother me too much."

Amused with the response, Emily chuckles with a squinted eye. "You know the viscosity of our blood has nothing to do with how we experience the temperature, right?"

"Possibly." Alison casually shrugs. "What scent are you wearing?"

Caught off guard with her bold return question, Emily's smile is wiped off and replaced with nervousness.

"Uhm...Jennifer Lopez's Glow. It's one of those skinny tubes you buy to test it. You know, to see how it works."

Alison pursed her lips, cocking her head to the side with a face that was unreadable from afar. "I like it. It's calming...sexy...but not overpowering. It fits you nicely."

Emily is struck with the compliment and suddenly unable to come back with anything but a timid grin that made her drop her eyes and look elsewhere.

On that note, Alison taps the tips of her fingers on the door-frame. "Good night, Emily. See you next week."

Emily nods, looking back up at her as she pushed herself off the door. "Good night, Ali. Drive safe."

She stands there while Alison departs the room until she hears the building's nearest exit door open and close, leaving her all alone. She spins on her heels towards her open bag with her tongue pressed in her cheek.

"Calming and sexy..." she repeats to herself, shaking her head at the choice of words. Stuffing all her belongings where they needed to be, she grabs everything she brought with her and heads to the door herself, causally making sure the room was as clean as she got it.

"And the award for breakout science-problem solver goes to..." Emily whispers to herself as she nears the light switch. "Alison DiLaurentis!" she mimics the sound of a roaring crowd as she flips off the ceiling lights blacken the room.

Private Emison sessions? Is it just me or were there a few unspoken moments between them tonight? What do you think each other were thinking? We are chugging along here, folks.

Also, don't hesitate to share this story among your fellow Emisonians. Just because PLL is over doesn't mean the stories have to stop. I'm pretty sure there are some starving shippers out there with no acknowledge of this, and other, stories that are still being updated. Be that saving grace in their deprived lives and share it with them.

Remember: Emison is love. Emison is life.