A/N: Hey guys! I just wanted to thank you guys all for all the great reviews! And yeah, I know this is a somewhat weird concept, but I figured that would be what would make it a little different from all the other millions of Aria/Ezra fanfictions out there… don't worry I'm an Ezria shipper to the core… Read. Enjoy. Review. : )

Rosewood, Subtract All Tragedies

Chapter Three:

** Five Years Ago **

"Oh my God," Alison said as Emily and Aria dropped their sleeping bags in Spencer's living room.

"What?" Hanna asked, from over in the kitchen where she was throwing popcorn into the microwave.

"This is Emily and Aria's first of our sleepovers," Ali announced and Spencer rolled her eyes.

"It's really not that intense," Spencer said, "We eat crap, watch a movie, then stay up late talking about boys. How is this a new concept to any type of girl ever?"

"Not really," Alison admitted, though grudgingly.

Alison really seemed like a dangerous personality, and Emily and Aria exchanged glances. They were used to her acting this way at school, but was it really possible to be that way all the time? Wouldn't it drive her nuts and eventually just be too much? Alison walked proud and confidently out the back door, and Spencer ran after her – the girls assumed simply because it was her house.

"Popcorn?" Hanna asked as she came over with the bag, "Don't worry about her, guys. She really does mean well – sometimes, well most of the time.

Then all of a sudden, there were cracking eggs on the sliding door and Alison and Spencer were shrieking. They opened the door and ran inside, but didn't manage to shut the door before Jason, and a few of his friends: Sean, Toby, and Ben ran in with rolls of toilet paper in hand. They started pelting them at the girls, and draped some of the couches.

"Boys!" Alison said angrily as her brother wrapped Aria up like a mummy with the toilet paper.

"Hi Aria," Jason gave her a crooked smile, not paying attention to his sister as he gave Aria a kiss on her cheek, "Having a nice night?"

"I was actually," She chuckled as he finished up and Ben cracked an egg over Alison's hair.

This managed to get Ali to scream out of frustration, she wasn't used to the boys not listening to her, and Aria got the feeling that she wasn't about to let herself get used to such a thing. The scream caused lights to go on up the stairs and the boys froze in their tracks as Spencer's father came running down the stairs.

"Hello, Gentlemen," He said, looking around the room and recognizing the situation pretty quickly without having to ask a single question.

"Hey, Mr. Hastings," Jason switched on his usual charm as he stepped away from a partially mummified.

"Jason," Mr. Hastings looked surprised, if not completely thrown off guard, "Ben, Sean, and Toby. Where do your parents think you are?"

"Jason's house, sir," Toby was holding a roll of toilet paper down by his side.

"Ah, of course," He replied, like the fact that the DiLaurentis parents were supposed to be watching them explained everything, "Well boys, what are you standing around for? I want this place spotless. Girls, see to it that they finish cleaning up and leave? Alison, why don't you go grab a shower? You know where the towels are…"

"You've got it, Mr. Hastings," Alison smiled knowingly and Mr. Hastings exhaled noisily.

"Thank-you, Alison," He mumbled, then headed back upstairs, calling over his shoulder, "I'm coming down in an hour, if the boys are still here all of your parents are being called."

"Yes Sir, Mr. Hastings!" Jason said as Spencer went and got them trash bags and they started to clean up.

"Don't forget the egg on the window," Alison said, departing for the shower like a little princess.

Hanna fetched Sean paper towels and Windex for the window, and the rest of the girls started to help the boys pick up.

"Spencer, why does your dad hate me?" Jason asked seriously as he held the bag open for Sean to drop the eggy paper towels in.

"He senses your inherit grossness?" Spencer offered, "I honestly have no idea, Jason. He's dad, he does that sometimes."

"It's creepy," Ben said as he tossed some toilet paper into Jason's trash bag.

"What's creepy is cracking eggs on people's heads," Hanna rolled her eyes at him.

"No, that's just epic," Sean gave him a high five.

"Boys are so stupid," Emily said, looking right at Ben, then turned to Aria, "I don't know how you put up with it."

"But he's so cute," Aria teased and Jason smiled as the rest of them laughed.

** Present Day **

"Here you go, buddy," Jason said as he handed Ezra a cool glass of water.

Jason had dropped Ben and Sean off at their respective homes, and was now sitting in his kitchen with a still heavily intoxicated Ezra and Toby. Toby helped himself to some orange juice out of the fridge while Jason was attempting to help Ezra while Toby went from his orange juice to fix three bowls of cereal.

"Why're you so nice to me?" Ezra asked Jason.

It would be easier for him if Jason was some big dumb jock-dick, but he was nice. Jason was a decent guy, he had a sphyco sister, but that wasn't really something that he could help. Ezra had been reeling about the guy since he had arrived, and all he had wanted to do was to hate Jason – but he couldn't. His only offence was having Aria, and Ezra just couldn't see hating him for it. It would be so much easier if Jason treated her like crap, or was somehow a terrible person – but there he was taking care of him, and being, plainly, a good friend to a guy he'd known three days.

"Honestly?" Jason asked as Toby put the cereal in front of each of them, "Because you're a friend, even if we haven't been all that close, or you haven't been here all that long – you've made quick friends with Aria, and by proxy all of us. Eventually, I'll be hiding your drunk ass at my house because you're by friend. Right now, I'm hiding you and helping you because you're Aria's friend – and frankly she'd kick my ass if I didn't."

"You've seriously underestimated the power Aria has over Jason here," Toby chuckled as he scooped cereal into his mouth.

"Hey, she's my best friend," Jason replied, then went a little strange, like he was thinking about something, "If nothing else, she's my best friend."

"Hey, remember that time we crashed their sleepover?" Toby chuckled and Ezra's ears perked up.

"Oh, yeah," Jason said, "That was epic."

"What happened?" Ezra asked, sometimes he really hated that he hadn't been in the group as long as the rest of them.

"In like Eighth grade, the girls were having a sleepover over at Spencer's next door," Jason filled him in.

"So Sean, Ben, and the two of us go over with a bunch of toilet paper, and like a dozen eggs," Toby continued.

"Mr. Hastings totally busted us-"

"Mr. Hastings is probably the scariest man alive."

"We had to clean it up, but he was actually pretty cool about it," Jason said, "He didn't even call anyone's parents."

"We could have been so screwed," Toby replied.

"Well it wasn't like he came in to us making out with the girls," Jason pointed out, "He came into me mummifying Aria, Ben cracking an egg over Alison's head, and You and Sean t.p.-ing his living room."

"That's true," Toby chuckled, "How could I have possibly forgotten the egg in Ali's hair."

"I don't know," Jason chuckled, "It was pretty priceless."

"This is something I'm very I missed," Ezra was laughing just at the thought of the scene Mr. Hastings must have walked in on.

"We haven't crashed a sleepover since," Jason admitted.

"We should do it," Toby said and Jason looked at him as if he had about six heads.

"Their at Emily's," Jason reminded him, "Do you want to answer to Sergeant Fields?"

"I don't think he's a sergeant," Toby voiced, though was ignored.

"Emily's dad's in the army?" Ezra was kind of surprised that an army man would let his daughter date what he'd seen in Ben.

"Yeah," Toby said, "You should see Ben around him. He completely changes – I'm pretty sure Mr. Fields thinks he has a new recruit in a couple years. But besides that, isn't he deployed right now?"

"Oh, Mrs. Fields is a nice target."

"As long as we're playful we'll just get a little reprimand," Toby pointed out and Jason seemed to be considering it.

"That's if she wakes up," Jason said.

"Just don't make 'em scream," Ezra said as he dug into his cereal.

"Sober up," Jason said, going to make him some coffee, "Then we'll sneak over."

"Sounds good," Ezra said through a mouthful of cereal.

Meanwhile, the Field's living room was draped all over with sleeping bags. Alison's was strewn over the couch while Emily and Spencer were sharing an air mattress on the floor nearby. Hanna and Aria had "borrowed" the mattress off Emily's bed and were sitting on that while they recouped from the party and talked.

"So that was a successful party," Alison announced as she climbed into her sleeping bag.

"How so?" Spencer asked, "You were rejected by Ian, once again."

"Yes, but new boy Ezra proved to be a very cute drunk," Alison said, "And if Ian won't have me, what's better than to make him jealous with the new kid? He's pissed already with all the girls who're abandoning ship."

"What?" Aria was confused, and her mind was reeling.

This was not good news. Not only was Alison about to claim Ezra for herself, it wasn't even because she liked him. She would just be using him – Aria could feel her blood beginning to boil. She wasn't quite sure what she was going to do about her feelings for Ezra, or his apparent feelings for her, if anything but she knew that no good could come from Ali messing with him.

"I'm going to get Ezra, so that Ian will pay more attention to me," Alison said simply, shrugging as if it were that simple, "Ian's so used to all the girls fawning all over him, but since Ezra's here, from New York, and let's face it, hotter than hell – Ian's been getting fewer and fewer girls chasing him around. So – put out the claim girls. Ezra's mine – and honestly, that will only make him a little more desirable to the girl population, which will only provoke Ian more."

"Wow," Spencer said, more in awe of the plan than either approving or disapproving.

"You can't do that, Ali," It was out of Aria's mouth before she could even process it in her own thought process.

"Who says I can't?" Alison replied defensively, "What're you gonna do about it? And what do you care? Unless you've developed feelings for him, but c'mon you're Jason. That would so not be cool. Why the hell would you even be giving Ezra a once over? I get that he might be your friend – but he's a big boy he'll be fine."

"I can't believe you're gonna do this," Aria stood up, folding her arms across her chest.

"Yeah, c'mon Ali," Hanna jumped in, "Ezra hasn't done anything. You shouldn't mess with him like that."

"So? He'll get over it," Alison said, "He didn't really think that he'd be able to just walk into the most exclusive clique in Rosewood with that arrogant attitude, did he?"

"This is low, Ali," Aria said, starting to walk out of the room, "Even for you."

"Aria," Hanna went to follow her.

"Leave her, Hanna," Ali said without even batting an eyelash, "She'll come back when she can realize that Ezra has to pay his dues to be in the group – just like everyone else. He'll get over it eventually/"

Aria walked right outside and sat by the Fields' flower garden. She stared at the flowers until her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and see could see the moonlight making shadows across their surfaces. She wasn't all that afraid for Ezra, he had no interest in Alison, and had asked her countless times just in the past couple days why she put up with her. What upset her was that Ezra very clearly only wanted to be in the group so that he could hang out with her, he was her friend. And he was going to be hurt, either way, just for wanting to be her friend – or rather wanting to be more than friends.

Aria still hadn't finished processing what he had said at the party, about liking her like that. She had been half hoping that her slightly off-setting feelings were one-way, but she guessed that she had known the whole time that he felt the same as she did. Ezra wasn't the problem, she knew exactly how she felt about him, the thing that was holding her up was how she felt about Jason. The strength and pace of her feelings for Ezra brought into question just about everything she knew about her relationship with Jason.

If she felt nothing at all for Jason, then this would be an easy decision – made slightly more difficult by Alison and her sphere of influence. Aria loved Jason, she always had – the problem was more the idea that she had been with Jason just about all of her dating life. Had she just been blissfully unaware that feelings like she had for Ezra existed in the world, or if her feelings for Ezra were something quick that were going to pass. Either way, the last thing she wanted to do was to hurt either of them. Or let Alison hurt, or try to hurt either of them. At the very least Ezra would be hurt when he found out what Alison was planning.

"Hey, what're you doing out here?" Aria turned around to see Jason, Ezra, and Toby sneaking around the bushes, "Isn't the party inside, sweetheart?"

"Just, needed some air," Aria replied, and Jason nodded.

"Alison?" Jason asked and Aria nodded.

"Sometimes she's just way out of line," Aria said, as she realized Toby was carrying a pillow case, "What've you got, Toby?"

"Silly string, and some toilet paper," He told her and Aria chuckled.

"Don't let me stop you, go ahead in," Aria smiled weakly, "They'll love that. Where're Ben and Sean?"

"They had a curfew," Jason said, and Aria nodded, "You sure?"

"Yeah," Aria said, "They're all awake."

"Ok," Jason said, "Hey Ezra, why don't you stay with Aria? That way you can play look out."

"What?" Ezra said, and Aria made a move to say something – leaving Ezra with her would not be one of Jason's best plans.

"That's Emily's mom's room," Jason said, pointing to the window on the second floor, "If a light turns on, or there's any movement, come in and get us, quick."

"Ok," Ezra took a seat next to Aria on the garden bench.

"Ugh," Aria said, "This is when I hate cliques."

"I thought you said Alison wasn't that bad?" Ezra gave her a knowing 'I told you so' smirk.

"She's out of control."

"I'm sorry, about earlier," Ezra felt he had to just say it, then he would feel less awkward.

"It's fine," Aria said, "I can see you've sobered up."

"Yes, your boyfriend is king of sobering people up."

"What'd he do?"

"Cereal, coffee, and a glass of water," He replied and Aria nodded, slightly relieved, "You've got a really nice guy there."

"Is that sarcastic?" Aria was genuinely confused.

"No," said Ezra as Jason and Toby came running out of the house.

"C'mon, Ez," Jason called as they ran across the backyard – and Ezra ran with them, "Good night, Beautiful, Sweet dreams! I'll text you in the morning, love you!"