A/N: As I've done in my previous "Domestic Emison" stories, I have played with the timeline of the AD reveal from the OG series. To keep things a little less confusing as far as timelines go, in this story the events from the PLL series finale take place prior to Lily/Grace being born. Just easier to keep track of time jumps that way. Here we go. Buckle your seat belts and keep your arms in legs inside the ride at all times.
Chapter 3:
Strategy
Alison laid in bed that night thinking about every single bump in the road she and Emily had hit since they'd gotten together. No marriage was perfect. They knew that going into it. But they loved one another and were determined to make it work. After all, they had survived feats much less difficult than marriage.
When Alison had met with Emily's mom to ask for Emily's hand in marriage they had talked about what went into a marriage. Pam had shared a lot of intricate details of how she and her late husband had made it work for so long. She talked about how she just wanted her daughter to be happy. And Alison assured her of that happiness. Alison appreciated Pam's candor. She'd promised her that she was in love with her daughter. She'd never been more certain of anything in her life.
It was hard for her not to question when exactly things had gotten rocky between them. When they fought they fell back on old habits. Emily's insecurities came out by way of overreactions. Alison had a habit of running, of being anywhere but around the conflict. Because when she stayed she said and did things she regretted. But she'd worked on that very hard over the years. They had both worked on their flaws. But that meant conflict for the two of them, though a healthy amount of conflict was expected in any relationship. That's how people grew.
Before the girls had been born they'd bickered over little things like vitamins and eating habits. Emily was overprotective and a touch neurotic, and Alison was stubborn as hell during her pregnancy, because she didn't like being told what to do. They'd gotten into a pretty big blow-out when Alison had been put on bed rest when she was seven months pregnant.
She hated being confined. And she resented being pregnant. She didn't resent the babies. She would never resent their children. But she was mad at her own body, and she took it out on Emily. Still, they managed to never go to bed angry, something that Emily had learned from her mom and dad. Her dad had often told her that even if you were in the middle of being angry at someone, you should never miss a chance to tell them you love them. Because there was always the possibility that you'd wake up and they'd be gone.
Once the babies came along the bickering had settled, the little things dropped away. They were too busy with two newborns to fight. They had to get on the same page if they wanted to survive the insanity of motherhood. Things still weren't easy, but there was a sense of family that Alison had never had before. But getting there had been a struggle.
Shortly before the girls had been born Alison had been dealing with a ton of emotional baggage. She'd always been afraid that she wouldn't be capable of love. The only person in her life she'd ever truly loved was Emily. She had an internal fear that she wouldn't be able to connect with the babies, especially given the circumstances of their conception.
Alison had been a hormonal mess by the time the third trimester rolled around. Feelings of terror and inadequacy haunted her dreams every night. On top of that, they'd both had nightmares about the trauma they'd endured, not just with the conception of the twins, but everything they'd been through. All of the torture. All of the PTSD.
Emily had always been horrible at dealing with it. She usually buried it inside and projected it on to helping other people deal with their problems while ignoring her own. Alison was short-tempered and lashed out at others, especially those closest to her. She knew that the people who loved her would never leave her, though deep down she had a fear of abandonment that exuded itself into a manipulative neediness.
They'd been working on their issues together. They'd been working on trying to be open and honest in their relationship. It was an ongoing process. It wasn't something that was just solved, because relationships were work. And adding kids to the mix just made things more intense.
Alison hadn't had the best upbringing. Absentee father. Manipulative mother. She'd learned terrible behaviors at an early age that she was still unlearning. She would constantly be working on herself.
But would it be enough for her children?
"I'm terrified." She'd admitted to Emily one night when she was eight and a half months into her pregnancy.
They'd been lying in bed trying to go to sleep, but Alison hadn't been able to get comfortable. Everything hurt. And she had to pee all the time, so she rarely got any sleep. And she was anticipating that, which made her insomnia worse, which made her neurosis worse. Emily had been giving her a massage to try to help her relax. She was rubbing some lotion against Alison's protruding belly.
"What's wrong?" Emily had asked.
"What if I can't connect with them? What if the…donor…" God she hated that word, but they didn't know how else to phrase it. They didn't want "rapist" associated with their babies, "is…is someone we know, and we see that?"
They'd gone back and forth about wanting to know who the twins' father was. The person responsible for the whole plan was behind bars. Spencer's psychotic twin certainly wasn't giving anything up. And Mary Drake claimed she had no idea who had helped Alex with it, but Spencer told them if they really wanted to know she could figure out a way to extract it out of her twisted sister.
Part of them wanted to know…needed to have that closure. But the other part of them feared knowing, because they didn't want to have any negative connotations or expectations of their babies. And it wouldn't matter. Because they loved their children regardless.
"What if they look like him? What if it's someone terrible? Someone we hate?" Even worse… "What if THEY hate ME? What if they know I'm not their real mom? What if…"
"Hey…" Emily had stopped her tailspin by gently taking her hands. "You ARE their real mom, Alison. And they are going to love you as much as I do." She'd gently stroked her cheek.
Alison had immediately responded to her touch. She always did. Emily was like the damn Alison-Whisperer. A simple look. A simple touch. And Alison was putty in her hands. It had gotten much more prominent since she'd ended up pregnant with Emily's children. Their children. It was a strange connection, but it was there. And Alison felt it.
"I don't know what I'd do without you." Alison admitted. "I am just…so unsure about so much."
"I get that." Emily nodded. "Trust me, I was not expecting anything like this. I know this isn't exactly what we planned for our lives, but here we are. Together. And I think that says a lot." She'd kissed her forehead, earning an earnest smile from the blonde. "I spent my whole life trying to plan everything down to the letter. But everything I tried to do was derailed. My swim scholarship, most of my relationships in high school, hell…even college wasn't what it was supposed to be for me. And if it's one thing I've learned it's that you can't plan your whole life around something you can't control. It's either going to happen, or it's not. And love…and family, that just makes it all the more uncontrollable. You don't happen to life. Life happens to you."
"I think you're wrong about one thing." Alison had looked at her curiously, bright embers of blue flame that burned heavily in the low light in the room.
"Yeah? What's that?"
"When you love someone, planning your life around them is more controlled than anything else in the world."
Even before she'd consciously known about her feelings for Emily she found herself doing things to be near her. She'd never felt more in control than when the two of them were sharing an intimate moment. But at the same time, she felt comfortable letting go of that control, because she knew she was safe with her. It was a balancing act.
"Promise me that you'll always love me?" Alison had moved in closer to the warm body beside her. "That even if I'm a miserable shrew of a mother that our children hate..."
"Alison, that's not going to happen..."
"Just promise me that we're going to be okay."
"Hey, there is nothing I wouldn't do for you. Nothing." Emily had delicately brushed aside some of her long blonde locks. "We're going to be okay, Ali. I promise. I'll never let anything happen to you." She'd moved her hand down to Alison's stomach, holding her palm there while looking into Alison's eyes, "...to us."
Alison had looked into Emily's eyes that night, and she'd felt it in her heart that they were going to be okay. Long before Beacon Heights was even a blip on their radar. She had been convinced that there was nothing she couldn't do without Emily by her side.
But Emily wasn't by her side anymore. Alison was in an empty bed. And that was Alison's choice, their choice, but ultimately hers. Emily had never told her she couldn't go. She hadn't liked the idea, but she didn't fight her on it. Because Emily was smart enough to know that resisting would only push her away. She didn't want to stand in Alison's way, so she'd taken on the bittersweet role of supporting her in the choice.
Now, here they were, on separate coasts. In separate beds. Living separate lives. It certainly felt like another challenge, but Emily had just told her days ago that she was done fighting…and that she supported her. So, what could have changed her mind to the point where she was avoiding her completely?
Maybe Mona had been on to something when she told Alison that Emily wouldn't be able to stay on the sidelines very long, nor was Emily buying the bullshit story that Alison was keeping her head down and staying out of the drama. If Emily had found out she was involved in the murder investigation that might have pissed her off. Alison couldn't stand the thought of going to bed angry, so she sent one last text.
"I love you."
She scrolled through her phone, looking at pictures of her and Emily and the girls over the years, trying to calm her nerves. The last image she saw before she fell asleep was a selfie Emily had taken with the girls at breakfast a few days ago. All three of them were blowing kisses at the camera. It made her heart ache. She missed them.
The next morning the first thing Alison did was pick up her phone to look for a text message or a voicemail from Emily. All she had was a phone call from an unknown number, one of those spammer calls. Why couldn't technology think of a way to filter those out of existence? She had a message from Mona saying she needed to talk ASAP and one from Dana Booker asking to meet up with her.
The Beacon Heights Security Team, also known as the one-woman-destructo crew had really been digging her heels in lately. She'd gotten personal with Mona two days ago, brazenly admitting that she knew about the little tryst Mona had in Paris with convicted felons, who honestly deserved a lot worse. Mona held her own, as she always did.
Alison had been avoiding her, because the woman made her irrationally angry. She looked at her phone and sighed, slamming her head back against her pillow. She hit the speed dial for Emily. It went straight to voicemail.
"Emily, this is starting to piss me off. Seriously. You want to talk about me not being available? I'm trying here. And it's not fair to put Lily and Grace in the middle. I want to talk to my daughters..." She paused and then sighed. "Sorry, I didn't mean that. I'm just…worried. And it's early…" She glanced at the clock, "And I haven't had my coffee yet, and you know what I'm like when I don't…"
A beep cut her off, an automated response saying,
"If you are satisfied with your message press 1, to re-record your message press 2…"
Alison went to press 2, because she'd obviously been a dick and none of that was really what she wanted to say. She knew that Emily would never use their daughters as pawns, no matter how pissed off she was. But when she hit 2, the call disconnected.
"Damn it!" Alison looked at her phone.
She felt like throwing it into the wall and shattering it. But if she did that it would probably just be replaced with a newer model with more spy-ware that would learn her habits and do all kinds of other creepy things.
As if on cue, her phone beeped. Alison looked at it hopefully, expecting to see Emily's name pop up. Instead, she got a text from an unknown number. A different one than the missed call.
"Need to meet. Urgent. -N."
She started to text back that they had the wrong number, but then figured…what was the point? She glanced at the clock and realized she was already behind this morning. She had papers to grade and her own schoolwork to do. And she had to find time to meet up with Mona, who had been keeping tabs on Ava, Caitlin, Dylan, and Claire.
The last conversation she'd had with Mona last night was in code. They'd developed a way to talk to one another without Beacon Guard knowing their true intentions. Mona's idea, of course. She was obsessed with chess. She was obsessed with the game of strategy.
There was a time when all Mona did was play games. Apparently, even when she'd been kidnapped and locked in the dollhouse, games had been a big part of her enclosure. Her captor, who no one had known was Charlotte at the time, had played all kinds of strategy games with her, knowing Mona couldn't resist a battle of wits.
Emily told Alison that when she and the rest of their friends had been taken to the underground bunker where they'd been held captive that Mona still had an affinity for games. She had an obsession with beating their captor.
Emily didn't talk to Alison about what had happened there. None of her friends would talk to her about it, but she'd seen the lasting effects it had on all of them. Sometimes she saw Mona go to that strange cloudy place in her mind. And Alison knew what she was thinking, because she'd seen the exact same look on her wife's face hundreds of times over the years.
At that very moment, Mona was sitting in her living room, waiting on Alison to return her call. She was starting to get impatient. The only thing that kept her from having a panic attack was running her fingers across a digital screen with a chess board. She moved pieces around, trying to clear her mind, just like she'd done in the dollhouse years ago.
That place had been hell. It had been horrible when it was just her by herself. She'd been brainwashed into thinking that she was nothing more than a robot. The only thing that kept her sane was playing games.
Then…Charlotte had brought Emily, Hanna, Spencer, and Aria into the hellish prison. At first, Mona was relieved to have company…to not be alone anymore. Not to mention there was strength in numbers. But then she was horrified at the thought that they were there. And she was afraid that they'd all die there.
The unknown forces that had been torturing her from behind a smokescreen started to do the same to her friends. They all slowly started to submit to Charlotte's demands. Everyone except for Emily. One by one they broke. Spencer, surprisingly, was the first to give in. She became sullen and withdrawn. Hanna wasn't far behind. Aria had resisted longer than Mona was expecting. She'd had a full blown meltdown one day, screaming at the cameras watching them, daring whoever was doing this to them to show their damn face.
Emily resisted everything she was told to do. It was a stubborn trait. It was the military in her blood. She had a lot more of her father in her than Mona had ever realized. But that made her dangerous, and Charlotte knew that.
There was a period of time where Mona was separated from everyone but Emily. She'd gotten a note telling her she had a shot at freedom if she played a game with Emily, a game that Emily wouldn't know they were playing. The objective was to get Emily into the closet and then press a hidden button in a small panel by the door. The note didn't specify what the button did, but it was enough to make Mona's stomach churn.
It was an agonizing choice to make. Because if she got a shot at freedom, couldn't she just go for help? Or was she so far gone that the person pulling the strings figured she would just walk away from it?
What she didn't know is that Charlotte had written Emily the same exact note. In the end, they'd both refused to hurt one another. Charlotte had punished them for their insubordination by turning the sprinklers on and then corralling them into a room and turning the air conditioner down to arctic chill, or least that's what it had felt like.
Emily had pulled her windbreaker off and draped it over Mona's bare shoulders to help try and curb her chill. Mona had been surprised at the motion.
"Why are you helping me?"
"Because you're not the enemy here. You're stuck here, too." She'd paused and looked around the cold dark room. The only things in it were two chairs, a chess board, a fake potted plant and a box full of junk they'd both looked through when they were forced into the room. "And you look like you could use a friend."
"Is that what we are?"
"Of course." Emily had seemed offended by the question.
"Well, it's so hard to tell. One minute you all are Team Mona and the next you're Team Screw Mona."
Emily had taken a seat next to her.
"We care about you, Mona. We've been shitty about showing it, but we do. You don't know how devastated we were when we got to your house and…" She'd taken a thoughtful breath, "…all that blood. We just…we imagined the struggle. The fight you must have put up. Hanna was damn near inconsolable, and when we saw all that blood in your room…" She shook her head. "It was real. Visceral. You know, I've lost people before, but that was…it hurt like hell. You have no idea."
Mona hadn't had the words to reply. All she'd been able to do was smile at her. They'd sat in silence for a few minutes. Emily had looked around the room and then sighed.
"Is this where you've been? Locked in this room with…nothing?"
"It only uses this room for punishment." Mona shook her head. "Here or…" She'd swallowed hard. "The hole…with no food or water for days."
"Jesus, I'm so sorry."
"You don't have to call me Jesus, Em. We've known each other long enough for you to call me Mona."
It had been an unexpected icebreaker they'd both sorely needed. Mona had shivered from the cold and then wrapped Emily's windbreaker tighter around her body. She'd glanced at Emily. If she was cold, she was hiding it well.
"Why didn't you do it?" Mona asked.
"Huh?"
"The closet. I've done so many horrible things to you. I would have thought you'd take the chance to save everyone else…"
"We're past that." Emily had shrugged. "Besides, there was no guarantee that this psycho really would have let me go. It's probably just another one of their sick games. I wasn't willing to take that chance." She'd glanced at the shorter brunette. "Why didn't you do it?"
"Because it wasn't the right move."
"Play to win." Emily had nodded in agreement. She'd been staring at the chessboard, because there was absolutely nothing else to look at in the room.
"You know how to play?" Mona stood up and moved over towards the checkered board.
"I used to play with my dad. I was never very good. Always wanted to up my game."
Mona had stared at the game pieces until her vision became blurry.
Seconds later, she was shaking herself out of the memory. She found herself staring at the digital chessboard at her place in Beacon Heights. And then her mind was on a journey to try and put all the pieces of Nolan's murder together. Three "close" friends who really weren't that close to him, all except for Ava. An overbearing mother. A potentially dead sister. Alison had been right about Taylor. Mona had found some holes in her suicide story. She'd also pegged a few phone calls and texts that Nolan had on a burner phone talking to someone outside of the security system's range.
"I'm missing something," Mona uttered to herself. "What am I missing?"
Pieces. All the pieces. She had all the pieces. But what was her move here? She looked down at the notes she'd taken, which would look like gibberish to anyone else, but made perfect sense in her mind. Codes. Algorithms. She started writing another string of equations down.
Play to win.
She heard a knock at the door, startling her out of her trance.
"Entrer." She'd been expecting Alison, so she wasn't surprised to see her walking in with breakfast.
"Hey, we need to make this quick." Alison shut the door. "I've got to get to class…"
"Where the hell have you been?" Mona asked, nearly manic. "I've been calling you all morning."
"I do have my own life, Mona." Alison put the food down on the table.
"It turns out your theory about the Hotchkiss family might be right." Mona went back to writing on her notepad.
"Which one?" Alison moved towards her, noticing the hours and hours worth of scrawl on sheets and notebooks and boards all around her.
"Taylor. I think she was in contact with Nolan before he died…"
Alison's head shot towards the security system.
"Please, Alison. I'm not an amateur. I have a livestream from yesterday on a loop."
"So, you believe me about Taylor?"
"I can't prove anything, but Nolan was in contact with someone before he died. Someone not on Beacon Guard's radar. My system would have pegged it if it was one of his posse. And it definitely wasn't his mother. He was…intimidated by her. He didn't trust anyone. So much so that he was paranoid about it sometimes. It was in his file." She picked up a thick file. "But he was close to his sister. What I can't figure out is what happened the night she allegedly killed herself. I think if we figure that out, we can figure out who killed Nolan."
"So, we're looking at people who would want to hurt Taylor now?"
"They may be one in the same, but they also may be two completely separate entities. Nolan may have been killed because he knew too much."
Alison sighed and thought about something.
"Did you say he was using a burner phone?"
"Yeah. Why?"
Alison dug her phone out, her heart thumping wildly in her chest. That message. That weird message.
"Do you have the number?" She held her phone out to Mona to show her the text.
Mona looked at it like it was a puzzle at first. But then her eyes lit up.
"Shit." Mona grabbed her phone and stared at it like it was a bomb. "Why the hell didn't you tell me about this?"
"I just got it this morning. I didn't think anything of it. I get spam all the time. I just thought it was a wrong number."
"The time stamp on this is dated the night he died."
"Are you kidding me?" Alison ran her fingers through her hair. "What the hell am I supposed to do? I've got a meeting with Dana in ten minutes! She's been on my ass about this since I got to town. Do you know what this looks like?"
"Like someone is trying to frame you for murder."
"Great. We're back to that again. Same shit, different town."
"Okay. Okay, don't panic." Mona opened up an app on her phone.
"What are you doing?"
"She probably won't ask to see your phone. Not without a warrant…"
"Yeah, because she's so good about doing things by the book." Alison rolled her eyes. How ironic that her last name was Booker.
"I have an app in testing that can put up a cloak of invisibility…" She tapped the screen with her fingers, "…figuratively speaking, of course. And…voila. Hidden message. No one can see it. Not even the phone company." Mona continued playing with the phone. "I'm just…sending the information to me, so I can see if I can get more out of it." When she finished she looked up at Alison. "There ya go, hon."
"Wouldn't it have been easier to just delete it?" Alison snatched her phone.
"We may need it later." Mona shook her head. "I'll look into it. See if it was really sent from him or a ghost account."
"Why would he want to talk to me of all people? I'm new here. I don't even know anyone."
"Which is precisely what he might have needed. People who don't know Beacon Heights." Mona pointed out.
"If that message was intercepted…someone may have lured him out to his death using my name." Alison realized. She was horrified. "We have to find this bastard."
"We're getting closer." Mona was certain. "But for now we've got to keep up this charade. I'll keep being my incredibly brilliant self, and you…" She looked at Alison with a cheeky smile, "…you do you."
"Wow, that's inspired. Thanks for that," Alison replied sarcastically.
"I'm going to follow a few leads. I might be incognito the rest of the day, just FYI." Mona jotted something down.
"I'll cancel my meeting with Dana…"
"No, that's the last thing you should do. If you do that she's going to know something it up. This only works if we keep playing our roles here. Just act natural when you meet up with her. In fact, let her do most of the talking. She seems to like to hear herself talk." Mona rolled her eyes.
Alison took Mona's advice. She walked to the coffee shop across the street from Mona's place. She saw that Dana was already there. Of course she was early. Alison took a breath and went in, ready for the barrage of questions. What she wasn't ready for was the content of those questions. It had started out innocent enough. Dana had offered to buy her a coffee, but Alison declined.
"Visiting an old friend?" Dana nodded towards Mona's place as they took a seat.
"Comparing notes on our students." Alison shrugged. "She is their advisor, after all."
"You and Mona go way back, don't you?"
"Well, we were in Brownies together." Alison smiled, revealing nothing. "She could make a mean s'more."
Dana smiled back, a duplicitous expression in her eyes. She was like a lion ready to pounce. Alison thought she was ready…until the woman sidelined her with questions that weren't related to Nolan's death at all. Dana switched gears and flat out railroaded her with questions about her family.
"It must have been hard to come out here where no one knows you."
"Well, the university offered me an amazing opportunity that I couldn't pass up." Alison replied, maintaining eye contact with the bitch. She was not going to blink first.
"Still. Your family must miss you." Dana glanced at something in a notepad. "How long were you married?"
Strange way to phrase the question. What was her game?
"We're going on three years now." She'd married Emily shortly after the girls were born. They'd worn little matching flower girl dresses. "But we've been together a lifetime."
"This is your second marriage, correct?"
Alison felt a burning fire in the pit of her stomach. She had a brief flash where she imagined herself lunging over the table at her and strangling her. Alison grit her teeth and ignored the question. Dana could see she was pressing her buttons, and she kept doing it.
"I've heard that things have been a little turbulent for the two of you."
"That's how marriage works. It's not all sunshine and butterflies." Alison glanced at Dana's coffee, wondering if it was hot, wondering if it would burn her if she threw it in her face. "The important thing is that at the end of the day you still love each other."
"Hmm. So true." Dana nodded, an eerie smile on her face. "So, when was the last time you spoke with your wife?"
"I…" Alison tried to play it off coolly, "I can't recall exactly. We've both been busy."
"I can't imagine you go long in between conversations, not with those two beautiful little girls. Lily and Grace, is it?"
Alison was caught off-guard, because she'd been very careful not to talk to people she didn't trust about her family. She'd tried to blend in with the crowd. She didn't want people to start nosing into her history. Claire Hotchkiss knew almost everything about her past, but she'd promised Alison she'd be discreet.
"I know what it's like to live life under the microscope," Claire had told her shortly before Nolan was killed.
Now, Alison was questioning everything the woman had ever told her. Because who else would know all the intricate details about her life? She knew Mona wasn't the one talking.
God. She trusted Mona of all people. If someone had told her back in high school that the two of them would end up being friends she would have laughed them right out of town. But now, Mona was the only person in town she didn't think was suspicious.
"How old did you say your twins were?" Dana asked.
"I didn't," Alison replied coolly.
"You got pregnant in your first marriage, right?" She thumbed around with the file on the table. "Archer Dunhill?"
Alison saw red.
"…or…Elliott Rollins, as he told you. On paper, you two seemed happy. Want to tell me what happened there? I mean, other than him turning out to be someone entirely different than you thought he was?"
"I don't see how any of this is relevant." Hitting her wouldn't be worth the jail time. Alison told herself. God, but it would be so satisfying.
"I just find your history…intriguing. Your first husband turned up dead while you were in a mental hospital. Usually they look at the spouses, but you had your alibi. Institutionalized at the time for…" She read her notes, "…vivid and violent hallucinations. But that didn't stop the police from looking at you. But not just you. They were looking at you and your friends. But then…a woman just walked in off of the street and confessed. No connections. No motive. Just a random confession."
All Alison could hear in her head was Mona telling her to keep quiet and let Dana talk. So she just shrugged indifferently, though she was raging inside.
"You know, I was curious about how quickly you jumped from one marriage to the next…"
"I loved her long before anyone else came along, and that feeling never went away. She was always there for me." She couldn't stop herself from defending her relationship.
"I'm just saying that the timing is interesting. Not just the relationships, but the timing of your pregnancy. Judging by the age of your girls, the conception would have been around the time you were institutionalized."
Alison tried to keep a straight face. How the hell did she know about that? No one knew the truth. The horrible truth about how the twins had been conceived. She glared at her. If looks could kill, the woman would be running around with her stupid bushel of Marge Simpson hair on fire and the rest of her body being ripped apart by rabid dogs.
"Your math is wrong." Alison curled her fingers into a fist underneath the table.
"No. No, I don't think so." Dana smiled. "See, I found a record of a DNA test done before your daughters were born, which is interesting enough as it is."
Of course she was doing things the shady way. Of course she'd hacked her way into Alison's medical records. Or bribed someone. Dirty cops were the worst.
"If you were married to Rollins at the time you got pregnant, how is it that your children have neither his…nor your DNA?"
That was the breaking point for Alison. It had always been a soft spot for her. And she had a feeling Dana Booker knew that.
"What does any of this have to do with Nolan Hotchkiss?" Alison snapped.
"I'm just trying to paint a picture of everyone in this town so I have the full story."
"I see. Do you harass my students like this as well?" Alison glared angrily at her.
"I'm just doing my job."
"Well, I'm sorry I can't stay here and listen to you berate my life, which you know absolutely nothing about, by the way, or I'm going to be late for my job. You know, a job that actually makes a difference." Alison hastily stood up. "We're done here, Detective Booker. If I hear of you harassing my students the way you've handled me today you can bet your ass your boss is going to hear about it." She leaned over her, a power move. "And if you even think about dragging my wife and my children into this you will regret it."
"Is that a threat, Mrs. DiLaurentis?"
"I don't know. Perhaps your superior would like to know that you're accessing personal medical files and violating my constitutional rights."
"Mmm." She stood up, coming face to face with Alison. She took a sip of her coffee and then smiled at her. "Have a nice day. I'll be in touch."
Alison stormed off. If she'd stayed even a second longer she would have punched her. She would have taken a swing and then pelted her with stale muffins and sweet'n low. She was shaking when she left the coffee shop. She couldn't get over the fact that Dana had infiltrated her life like that. She grabbed her phone and sent a text to Emily.
"I really need to talk to you. I need to hear your voice, Em."
And she needed to know that Dana wasn't right, that they weren't stuck in a rut…that they were going to be okay.
She tried Mona next, but wasn't surprised when she didn't get an answer. Knowing Mona she was probably off on an exploration of the entire Hotchkiss family.
Alison threw her phone in her bag and hustled to make it to her class on time. She was a few seconds shy of being late. The kids were already in their seats, doing various things, mostly on their laptops. Alison tried to put her problems aside and bury herself in teaching. She had a few more participants than normal, probably because they were starting to realize they couldn't coast in her class, and they couldn't afford to fail. She was barely mentally present for most of the discussions.
It was only when the class was over that she realized she was still shaking from her confrontation with Dana. She hadn't felt that vulnerable in a long time. It used to be that it upset her. Now it just pissed her off.
"Mrs. DiLaurentis?" When she looked up she saw Dylan standing in front of her. He had a worried look on his face.
"Dylan. What can I do for you?"
"I had a couple of questions about my paper. I was wondering if I could make an appointment to come talk to you about it?"
"Sure." Alison nodded.
"Does tomorrow work for you? Around ten?"
"Yeah."
"Hey…is everything okay? You seem…distracted." His lips narrowed in thought. "Is it about the investigation? I saw you and Dana Booker at the coffee shop this morning."
"Uh…yeah, everything is fine." Alison lied. "It was just routine questioning."
"That woman is intense." Dylan shook his head. "She was pressing me on my relationship with Andrew. And she did the same to Caitlin and Jeremy. Apparently her line of questioning with Ava was completely different though."
"Different how?" Alison asked.
"You'd have to ask Ava. I know it involved her family though. Really hit a sore spot for her."
"I didn't see Ava in class today…"
"Yeah, she…isn't feeling well." Dylan looked at the ground. Alison had learned that his eyes cut away when he was trying to hide something. "I should get going or I'm going to be late for my next class. I can sleep when I'm dead, right?" He paused and then frowned. "That…came out wrong."
"Don't worry about it." Alison waved it off. He started to turn around and walk out of the room, but Alison called after him, "Dylan?"
"Yeah?"
"The next time Dana Booker comes for you...for any of you, let me know, okay? Her questioning techniques are borderline abusive. And I won't have that for any of you."
"Yeah. Thanks." He nodded with a smile.
She watched him walk out of the classroom and then she grabbed her phone. Instead of calling Emily, she tried Pam. Maybe she could sic Emily's mom on her to get her to return a damn phone call. Pam didn't answer, so Alison just left her a message asking her to call her back.
She tried to go about her day not thinking about worst case scenarios. She was able to keep her mind occupied for most of the day, but she tossed and turned that night.
She really started to panic when she was unable to reach her wife the next day. She'd missed two storytimes and she still hadn't heard anything from Emily. It left a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Emily would never keep the girls away from her.
Something felt wrong. She'd felt it in her gut all along, but she didn't want to listen to it, because she thought they'd left the shady part of their lives in the past.
She jumped at the chance to meet with Mona that morning. She thought maybe Mona could work some hacker magic or figure out how to find out where Emily was. Or maybe she could work something up to protect Emily from Dana's invasion. That woman made the other cops Alison had dealt with in her life look like Barney Fife and friends. She was completely worked up when she walked into Mona's living room.
"This is too much." Alison shook her head. "It's all too much."
"Wow, Dana really rattled your cage, didn't she?" Mona asked.
"She knew things about me, Mona!" Alison exclaimed, "About Emily and the girls. Everything that happened in Rosewood…"
"I wouldn't be too worried. A quick google search could tell her all that."
"She knew about Archer and what he did in Welby."
That stopped Mona in her tracks.
"She knew about Lily and Grace. The truth about them. She knew about things that…that only happened between me and Em. And I can't get ahold of Emily to warn her that this bitch might be trying to pull her down the rabbit hole with me again."
"Emily was nowhere near Beacon Heights when Nolan was murdered. Dana has no jurisdiction. She's just trying to shake you down."
"All it's doing is pissing me off."
"Naturally." Mona nodded. "That's her endgame." She glanced at the chessboard on the screen in front of her. Her online partner had made a move. "It's strategy, Alison."
"I need you to focus here, Mona. I need you to help me get in touch with Emily."
"She's your wife. You have a better shot than I do."
"She's not answering my calls."
"Maybe she's busy."
"For two days?"
"Maybe Dana called her and she decided to play it safe and go tech free until the heat dies down."
"That's the opposite of what she'd do. If she knew about this she would have been on the first plane out here, and you know it."
"I thought you wanted to keep her out of all of this." Mona looked at Alison in confusion. She looked at the screen again. "This doesn't make any sense." She stared at the monitor.
"Hey, would you look at me for a minute, please? This is serious."
"The patterns," Mona muttered. "How did I not see this before?" She glanced at Alison. "The patterns are wrong..."
"Patterns...what patterns?"
Mona held her head up in concentration, her hands moving in front of her chest, like she was writing something in the air, mentally solving a math problem. Alison couldn't believe her luck. Dana Booker was on her ass. Emily was MIA. And Mona had snapped.
"But if the moves were pre-made that would mean that the game was already set for this outcome."
"Hey!" Alison exclaimed, bringing her hand up towards Mona's face. She swung her open palm through the air and it made contact with Mona's cheek. It wasn't enough to hurt her, but it was enough to gain her attention. She looked at the shocked brunette apologetically. "I...I'm sorry. I need you, Mona."
"Right." Mona dropped her hand. "Of course. How long did you say it's been since you talked to Emily?"
"Two days. Why?"
Mona looked back at the screen again.
"It can't be a coincidence." She tapped her foot impatiently.
"Mona, I can't afford to waste time. If you're spinning out, can you please just hurry it along?"
"It's an I.P. address!" Mona exclaimed to herself, a wry smile forming on her face. "Oh, somebody is clever. Check and mate."
"My wife is missing, and you're playing chess?" Alison frowned.
"She's missing in the same sense that you were missing back in high school. She's out there. I assume she has a plan."
"We don't know that."
"Yes, we do." Mona looked up from the screen. "Ali, I think what's happening here is connected to what's going on with your family…"
"What?"
"I think Emily is trying to send me a message." She walked over to her laptop and pulled a program up, running the moves of the online chess game she'd been playing. "I have this program that pairs me with online chess partners. I only have one regular partner. But a few days ago I got partnered with someone of a like mindset."
"That's…horrifying." Alison shook her head.
"This person already knew my strategy. And the game felt so familiar, but the moves were so slow to happen, like it was programmed on a timer or something. But I felt like I was playing with someone I knew. I think it's Emily."
"Okay, you've completely lost it."
"Here, I can show you."
"Does Emily even play chess?" Alison asked in surprise.
"We used to play…back in the dollhouse. We learned each other's moves pretty quickly. I didn't recognize the pattern at first. It's been so long."
"How did she even know how to find you?"
"You don't give your wife enough credit." Mona rolled her eyes. There was a ping on her computer. "And…there it is!" She pulled a site up.
It was dark at first, but then a pixelated video popped up. Emily's face was the screenshot. Alison's breath hitched in her throat. She reached over Mona and nearly broke the computer to hit the play button.
"Easy. It's a computer, not my face." Mona frowned.
Alison looked at her sheepishly.
The video started. The camera was close to Emily's face. The background was black and vague. Emily glanced at the ground and then looked back up. She peered over the top of the camera and then looked directly into the lens.
"Hey, Ali, if you're watching this, it means Mona figured out it was me," she said. "You can always count on Mona to come through in the clutch."
Alison glanced at Mona and saw a mixed look on her face. Pride. Confusion. Concern.
"I set the chess program up a while back with all of her credentials, knowing it would match her, as a way to reach her in case there was ever an emergency. I figured if I ever needed to reach her for something, this would be the best way. And now, knowing what I know about the security there, this was the best I could do. I wish I could have called you...just to see your face, to hear your voice...I wish I could be there with you...by your side..." She sighed. "That's how this is supposed to go, us...together. Right?"
Alison's knees felt like they were going to buckle at any minute. She gripped the table to keep from collapsing.
Emily glanced over the camera. Was she looking at someone? Was someone forcing her into this? Or was she in a rush to get through it because someone was after her? She looked at the camera again. She looked determined, but nervous. Alison had seen her wear that face many times before. She was trying to hold it together.
"The girls are safe. That's all that matters." She cut her eyes away for a second. Alison could see tears in her eyes and it took everything inside of her to keep herself from crying. Emily looked back into the camera. "Don't look for me. It's dangerous. Just…stay where you are." She paused. "Keep doing what you're doing. You and Mona, you're an unstoppable force and you are going to make a difference there."
There seemed to be a hidden meaning in her words. She gave the camera a meaningful look. She looked strange. Like it was the last goodbye. Or…perhaps it was some kind of signal.
"I love you, Ali, more than any fight we've ever had. More than any distance between us." She sighed and then smiled, "I love you so much that if there was an eternity, I'd love you there again. We're going to be okay." She took a shaky breath. "My first priority has always been you and the girls." She had a look of determination on her face. "And I'll never let anyone hurt you. I don't care how far apart we are, I will find a way to help you expose…"
The camera quickly cut out and the phrase "signal lost" came across the screen in big red letters.
"Get it back!" Alison cried frantically. "Get it back!"
"I'm trying!" Mona struggled, typing furiously. "It's…someone scrambled the signal…" She kept trying, but the site completely disappeared. "I…it's gone."
"What do you mean it's gone?" Alison stared in disbelief.
"It's like it never even existed. The server was destroyed. The code. The I.P. address. It's all gone. Someone wiped all traces of it."
"Who? Who would do that?"
"Someone who doesn't want us to know what she was trying to tell us." Mona looked up. "I think Emily knows more about what's going on in Beacon Heights than she led you to believe."
"How could she possibly know anything? She's been in Rosewood."
They were supposed to be safe. They were supposed to be having normal lives.
"I don't think she came looking for Beacon Heights. I think Beacon Heights came looking for her." Mona frowned. "That video was recent. She may have set the program up to reach me, but I saw the coding on the message before it crashed. It was shot and uploaded this week."
Alison stared at the blank screen that just moments ago had her wife's face on it.
"Mona…" Alison said, her voice calm and eerily even, her fingers tightly gripping the table. She was fighting the urge to flip the entire piece of furniture over, "…we have to find out who is behind this." She clenched her jaw in anger. "And when we do, I want your word that you'll help me destroy them."
Mona didn't respond with words. Instead, she opted to put her hand on top of Alison's, prying her fingers away from the desk. They glanced at one another, and Mona nodded in solidarity, a silent I'm with you.
Whoever was making her life a living hell was going to find out just how dangerous Alison DiLaurentis really was. She'd come to this town to become a better person. She'd come to help people. And she still planned on doing that, but she was going to do things her way. Whatever forces were behind the dark and twisted secrecy of Beacon Heights were about to find out that the danger wasn't the person who killed Nolan Hotchkiss. It was the person who was going to find out who did, come hell or high water.
