Thank you to those who reviewed the first chapter, I really appreciated it! Also I forgot to mention this on the first Chapter, but I'm from Australia, and we tend to follow the British way of spelling most words, so I apologise in advance for any words that may look strange to any American readers. I've tried my best to use American terms where I can, but I'm sure I've missed something somewhere.

She can't believe it. Of all the seats that could have been left free, it was the one next to her. Emily walks towards the desk as casually as possible. Alison is leaning back slightly on her chair, and she pulls out the chair to her left, gesturing for Emily to sit down. Emily slides into the seat, trying as hard as she can not to meet Alison's eyes.

Hanna is sitting two seats to her left, and she gives Emily an apologetic smile for not being able to save her a seat. If Emily had ended up sitting next to anyone else, she might have considered forgiving Hanna one day. But for now, she was busy vowing not to look anywhere to her right for the next 45 minutes.

She is making good on her vow for the first 4 minutes of the class. Their teacher, Mr Fitz, had told them to read over a question that they would discuss later, so Emily tried to engross herself in that.

"Recovered from your fall yet?"

Oh. She had never considered what to do if Alison actually talked to her. Perhaps she should have planned ahead for this.

"I, um, yeah, thank you," she replies, purposefully choosing not to look up from her reading. She cringes inwardly. She could have made a joke or something, but instead she couldn't even form a coherent sentence.

"My new friends quite enjoyed hearing about your trip," Alison informs Emily ever so casually.

Now her head flies up from the reading, and she shoots Alison a glare. Alison is leaning on her desk, one hand under her chin, and looking back at Emily with a hint of amusement.

"I, what! Don't tell me you told people," splutters Emily.

Alison laughs, and opens her mouth to reply, but she is cut off

"Miss Fields, whilst I do appreciate your attempts to get to know our new student, I would prefer it if you waited until after class for that," admonishes Mr Fitz, and Emily quickly flicks to the next page of her reading, suitably chastised.

She can't concentrate though, not with her sitting there. The words on the page may as well be Japanese for all Emily knows right now. Something about Alison makes Emily's brain go all foggy, and she shakes her head, trying to clear her mind. She can't work it out. It wasn't as if Alison had been friendly to her or anything, and if she had actually told people about what happened that morning… well. It didn't bear thinking about.

Emily tries her very best to keep her mind on the page, but she can't help it. She sneaks another glance at Alison, and feels a strange flutter within her stomach. Emily senses that Alison isn't actually reading what's on the page either. Her eyes aren't moving along with the words, and she is absently tapping her pen against her lip. Emily realises just a second too late that she has been staring for too long, as Alison glances at her out of the corner of her eye and gives her a tiny wink.

As Emily rushes to focus her attention back onto her page, she somehow manages to knock her pen flying off her desk. And of course, it falls on the floor next to Alison. Emily leans over to pick up the pencil case, but Alison is also bending down for it, and their hands brush together. Emily recoils from this touch, surprised at the heat she feels from the contact. Alison is left to pick up the pen and this time Emily is very careful to avoid both eye and skin contact with Alison when she accepts it. She can see the traces of a smirk on Alison's face, and she is decides that she will definitely be on time for English tomorrow. Hell, she will be the first one in the room.

The rest of the period passes without further incident, as Emily successfully manages not to make eye contact with Alison. She even manages to keep her pens on her desk this time. The bell rings to signal the end of the period, and Emily tries frantically to pack up her books and make her escape. But the more she tries to hurry, the slower she ends up going, as the zip to her pencil case keeps getting stuck. Hanna, Spencer and Aria have already left the classroom, and Emily finally gets her things packed up and is just about to leave, when she hears a voice from behind her.

"I never told anyone you know." She turns around, and Alison is sitting on her desk, having clearly been packed up for the best part of five minutes already.

"What?" is all Emily can say in response.

Alison leans into Emily's ear. "It will be our secret," she whispers, before striding out the door without so much as a glance back at Emily. Emily stands there for about ten seconds, dumbstruck, before realising that her mouth had been hanging open and that she had another class to get to.

Her brain is clouded for the rest of the day. She doesn't learn a thing in any of her next classes, because all she can think of is the feeling of Alison DiLaurentis' sweet breath right on her ear. She thanks her lucky stars (Missy Franklin having been dumped from this role) that she doesn't get picked on for an answer by any of her teachers. Her likely answer would have been "Alison," because that was all she could think about, and wouldn't that be embarrassing. She would rather relive her disaster in the box of lab coats than have that happen.

The end of the day finally arrives, and she meets Hanna after she goes to her own locker. Hanna is babbling away about something, but Emily wouldn't have a clue what, because her mind is of course on Alison. She is keeping half an eye out for any sign of Alison in the hallways, but there's no sign of her. They meet Spencer and Aria further down the hallway, and they are excitedly chatting as they stroll towards the parking lot. Emily's contributions aren't much more than the odd grunt of agreement.

"Earth to Emily," says Spencer after a couple of minutes, waving her hands in front of Emily's face.

"Hmm?"

All of a sudden Hanna starts to literally jump around with excitement, tapping Aria and Spencer on the shoulders.

"Senior Year is interesting already," she announces cryptically.

"Stop jumping around like a puppy and tell us what on earth you are talking about," Spencer replies.

Hanna pouts for half a second, before pointing at Emily. "Emily Fields has a crush ladies and gentlemen."

This snaps Emily right out of her daydream. "What are you talking about?" she asks, and she fears that there may have been a defensive edge to her voice. Of course Hanna would notice though. Hanna knew her better than anyone.

"Oh, come on Em. You've been walking around with a dopey look on your face for the past fifteen minutes. Now come on, tell us who she is!"

"I do not have a crush on anyone thank you," Emily says. And she might seriously have believed her own lie, if it weren't for the way her stomach twisted whenever she thought of Alison. A crush. It slightly surprised her with how quickly she accepted that she did indeed have a crush on someone that she had known for all of about six hours.

"Hanna makes a convincing argument Em," says Spencer, eyebrows raised. "You couldn't even form sentences for a while back there."

"Not you too!" cries Emily. "Aria, are you on my side?" she asks with pleading eyes.

"Hmm, sorry Em. I kind of have to side with Hanna on this one," says Aria, and Emily gives up. She knows she is busted, but for some reason she doesn't want to tell the others exactly who she has a crush on. She feels it might not go down too well after Aria's comments about Alison at lunch time.

"Oh come on Em, you have to tell us! I'm so excited about this!" Hanna pleads, and Emily just shakes her head. She isn't giving up this information so easily.

"Well, it's confirmed that you do have a crush then," Spencer remarks, and Emily rewards her with her biggest glare.

"Emily, please tell us! My love life is MIA at the moment, so at least let me enjoy yours," whines Hanna.

By this time they have already made it to the parking lot, and Emily makes a quick decision to just ignore Hanna. She strolls towards her car and hops in the drivers seat. She can see Hanna in the rear vision mirror putting on her most pitiful face, trying to make Emily feel guilty for her secrecy. Emily reverses out of the park and pulls away, casually waving goodbye to the girls.

"I'll find out one day Emily!" yells Hanna playfully, and Emily laughs as she sees Spencer clamp her hands over Hanna's mouth and drag her towards her car.

When Emily arrives home, she exchanges pleasantries with her mother in the kitchen, and is fairly satisfied that she wasn't acting at all strange. Then she heads up to her room and makes a list of vows for tomorrow:

1. Do not make eye contact with Alison

2. Do not mention Alison's name to anyone

3. If Alison's name is mentioned by someone, do not react. At all.

4. Get to English early and sit on the other side of the room to Alison.

5. Get to Biology late and avoid going anywhere near those lab coats ever again.

If she can stick to all five of these points tomorrow, her life should be much easier. She groans inwardly as she realises that there isn't much she can do about Hanna knowing she has a crush on someone though. She resigns herself to the fact that she is going to have to put up with Hanna's harassment until someone else in their group becomes a new target.

She decides to make a start on her homework before dinner, to try and keep her mind off Alison. She sighs as she realises that she never wrote down the question for English homework in her haste to get away from Alison. She is even more annoyed when she realises that she would have no idea what to write even if she did write the question down, so she gives Spencer a call.

Spencer picks up on the third ring, "Hey, ready to tell me about your crush now are you?" she says jokingly.

"No thank you, I am not. I was just calling about English homework. I forgot to write the question down."

Spencer laughs. "Too busy thinking about your crush were you?" she teases, and Emily rolls her eyes before realising that Spencer can't see her. "I'm actually working on it now, so you can come over to my house and we can work on it together if you want," Spencer continues.

Emily takes her up on the offer. She has always liked running, so she decides to jog over to Spencer's house rather than drive. About twenty minutes later she is outside of Spencer's house, and there is huge removalists van parked right in front of Spencer's driveway which strikes Emily as strange.

Emily stops for a quick breather before heading into Spencer's when she sees a blonde head that is all too familiar out of the corner of her eye. Alison DiLaurentis is on the sidewalk barely ten metres away, and Emily is quite tempted to keep running. It's too late though, as Alison's eyebrows have already raised in recognition of Emily. As Alison comes closer, Emily becomes very self-conscious of the fact that her forehead is dripping with sweat, and she frantically wipes her forehead with her t-shirt. She curses the fact that out of all the sidewalks in Rosewood, Alison would be strolling down this one. She realises with a sense of annoyance that she forgot to put that poster through the shredder when she got home.

"Come to swear me to silence about this morning have you?" says Alison as she stops in front of Emily. "I told you, it's our secret."

Shit. Again, she hadn't prepared for what to do in the event that Alison actually talked to her.

Emily opens her mouth to interrupt, but Alison doesn't miss a beat. "And now, Emily Fields, I would like you to tell me a secret".

Emily feels her stomach drop. Alison is leaning forward to say something else, so there's no escaping this one. "Tell me. What are you doing outside of my house?"

She realises with a surprise that Alison has moved into the house next door to Spencer. And if she had of known this very important piece of information half an hour ago, she might have stayed at home. She can't help but feel that Spencer should have mentioned this piece of gossip during lunch. It would have been most helpful.

Emily makes the quick decision to break rule number one on her list. She makes eye contact with Alison, and she can feel her insides flutter at the sight of those blue eyes shining with amusement. "I'm visiting a friend" she says, nodding towards Spencer's house.

"Oh really? I assumed you'd stalked me here," Alison replies with a quick laugh.

Emily blushes. "No. That would be weird."

"I'm almost disappointed," says Alison drily.

Emily doesn't really know how to respond to that. "Well I suppose I should get going then," she says, edging towards Spencer's house.

"Sure." Alison steps out of Emily's way, and Emily walks towards Spencer's house, determined not to look behind her at Alison.

"Emily?" comes Alison's voice from back on the sidewalk. Emily has no choice but to turn around, and Alison is still in the same spot she was before. She hesitates for a second, and then says "You should visit your friend more often." With that, Alison strolls on towards her house, and for the second time in one day, Alison DiLaurentis has left Emily dumbstruck.

Thank you for reading! Please leave a review :) Also just a note that the next update probably won't be for a little while, because I'm going to be pretty busy for the rest of the week.