Her throbbing head and sudden urge for some orange juice woke her up in the morning.

Her eyes tiredly fluttered open, and the sight sent a jolt inside her so huge, she felt a tsunami wave just washed up her shores. Her unworthy eyes fell upon the incredible, gorgeous brunette lying across her who is unaware of the power she holds on her, she doesn't know that this blonde is so irrevocably in love with her that she would sacrifice her own life before she would let anyone touch a single hair on her head.

Ali's heartbeat goes wild because Emily is lying a little too close, her face merely inches away and her one hand is loosely wrapped around Ali's torso, which implies she didn't sleep this way. But, Ali is thankful for Emily being a messy sleeper because it lands her this position. Ali makes very small, deliberate movements to get closer to Emily as cautiously as she can so as to not wake up the brunette, her brunette. She just wants to be a little closer to her, she actually wants to be a lot closer but she will settle for what she can get. Life has been handing out lemons to her lately, the things that she doesn't even want to think of at this moment, at this precious moment. She just wants to bask in the warmth of her favourite person in the world, wishing for this moment to never ever end, she wants to brand this moment in her mind, the way Emily has carved her space in her heart. She wants to learn every single detail of Emily's face, so that if she never ever see her again, be able to come this close to her, she could still remember her fresh as a day, everyday whenever she closes her eyes. As the seconds pass, her ecstasy gets adulterated by melancholy, because its the transience of moments that is making her forlorn. She just can't get over the fact that it is going to come to an end very soon. That this will soon be another beautiful haunted memory, whose ghosts will come back to taunt her. And, suddenly she feels like she is about to tear up, her vision gets a little blurry, she swipes her palm quickly along the side of her eyes, and scoffs at herself because when did she become such a soft, emotional person? Almost on cue, Emily stirs near her threatening the end of this moment, the fall of the curtains on this single act show.

All the clocks in the city

Began to whirr and chime,

'O let not time deceive you,

You can not conquer time.

In headaches and in worries,

Vaguely life leaks away,

And time will have his fancy,

To-morrow or to-day.

The end.

Audience gets up from their seats to clap.

Ali closed her eyes to keep up her nonchalance. Emily opened her eyes, but did not move instantaneously away from Alison, even though it lasted just a few seconds, this very small gesture by Emily which would go unnoticed to third person's eye made Ali calm a little bit because probably they are not that far gone yet. Emily moved a little and Ali opened her eyes, she found Emily standing near her side of the bed, she looked at Ali and suddenly a translucent wall of awkwardness fell between them. Ali sits back, resting her back by the headboard, realising that she is too hungover to stand and function properly. The happenings of last night, rush through her head. (The things that she remembered, and some other hazy bits). She remembers getting in her car, missing this brunette like crazy, driving in her high state, remembers watching Emily's face who was sitting on her window seat. She thinks to herself, Could she have acted anymore stupid? But she knows she has, that's why she is here in this room. She buries her head in her hands.

Ali doesn't realise when Emily comes and stands by her side of the bed, she taps her on the shoulder, and hands out aspirin and water to her, and stands there looking at Ali intently while she swallows the pills.

'So are we going to talk about last night?' Emily breaks the awkward silence.

Alison remains silent, because she doesn't know how to respond to that, she guesses Emily must have found her passed out outside of her house and have been kind enough to bring her in, she has some hazy memory of the night gone by, definitely remembers the feeling of Emily holding her in her arms and why would she do that? She despises her, believes that She is 'A'. Something is missing, she wonders what did she say to Emily in her inebriated state.

'What were you doing outside my house? Why were you crying Ali?' Emily says softly and, is again the one who breaks her train of thoughts.

Ali feels the blood rise to her cheeks making them red, because for once she has no idea how to answer something, and mostly in scenarios when she doesn't have an answer to something or doesn't want to answer something (it usually is latter) she retorts, but she doesn't want to use it on Emily because if she can't try to win her back right now, she will definitely try it later once her plan against 'A' executes perfectly and she doesn't want to add insult to injury.

'Did..Did you come here to.. to… see me?' Emily manages to form the words and say them out loud.

Oh! She so wants to say YES! out loud and get it over with, tell Emily how she is unable to stop thinking about her and how there is a gaping hole in heart since the day Emily turned her back on her before telling her that she is done with her now. But, she can't because she understands the game now, it is better to keep her (All of them, but specially her) at bay and carry on her plans, because this is a war and there has been enough collateral damage, and if A knew the position that Emily holds in her life.. She doesn't even want to think about the consequences.

'Ugh! Are you seriously going to give me a silent treatment? Huh? Is this another topic going into the pile of things we never talk about?' Emily is getting agitated with blonde's silence and she is pacing through the room now.

'This was a mistake' Ali speaks lowly, mostly to herself while pinching the bridge between her nose. When she opens her eyes she sees pained expression on Emily's face who has stopped pacing around and has stopped dead in her tracks looking at her. It shreds through Alison's heart that after all this time she can only be the cause of hurt in Emily's life, Emily quickly tries to change her expression and it is now replaced with anger again.

'Yes, because all of this has been one big mistake to you.' Emily speaks gesturing the space between them to signify whatever little relationship or whatever you can call it that they had.

'That's not what I meant' Ali speaks looking down at the ground, her bitch act with which she was masquerading along the halls of Rosewood high is down now.

'Then what do you mean? Because I sure as hell can't figure it out.'

'I should go back to my house.' Ali says meekly, unable to look into Emily's eyes, the eyes that she loves full of contempt towards her.

'You are not going anywhere till you answer my questions.' Emily plainly states.

Knowing that there is no way out of this mess that she herself has created and the look on Emily's face makes her stay because even today, it is hard to leave the brunette and walk away. The intensity of her feelings for Emily still surprise her every single time.

'You won't understand Em and believe me you don't want to. Remember you were done with me?' Exhaustion is evident in her voice.

'Maybe I want to understand now.' Emily replies back slowly and lowly.

It leaves Alison speechless because she never thought that she will ever get a chance to talk to Emily and explain her side of story ever, because she never thought the brunette will ever be interested in listening to her side of the story or even trust her words. Don't get her wrong it's not like she is willing to recount her tale to everyone, it's just that Emily has always been special to her, her exception to everything she was and everything she believed in.

'But I am 'A', remember? I'm the one who killed Mona, How can you even share the same air as me?' Ali retorts, because this accusation put by Emily on her, fucking hurts.

It was Emily's turn to look down on the ground, she mumbles, 'I don't think so anymore.'

Dark tranquility fills the room as both the girls finally make eye contact, Emily looks apologetical and Alison's tired eyes look back at Emily's. Emily notices the dark circles forming under Ali's eyes and wonders if the blonde has been sleeping at all lately? Her heart aches for this girl. She takes half a step forward towards her, because comforting this blonde comes naturally to her. Ali mirrors the movement and takes a full step in Emily's direction, just so that she can be a little closer to her. The blonde aches for any sort of contact with her mermaid. She has spent a long time away from her, she is physically unable to put anymore distance between them when the brunette is so close. But both of them do not find it in their hearts, the courage to close that final step worth of distance, one scared of hurting the one she loves and the other being scared of being rejected again. They settle for standing a little closer than before. Both of them have this realisation that they are a part of each other they can't get rid of, the world can throw them miles apart they will come back and fall harder for each other, into each other. They are like magnets, no matter how far they are or whatever obstruction there is in between them, they will always be drawn to each other.

'Ah.. Umm.. Its a relief to know that.' Ali tries to form a sentence.

'Yea! I figured, you are crazy but you can't be so deranged that you put me in a coffin and then save me too.' Emily reasons and earns a small laugh from Ali.

'I am glad to hear your reasoning behind it.' Ali replies back with a small smile tugging at the end of her lips, but her eyes still look sad and tired.

'But, I do have a plan against A .. and .. I can't tell you about it.' Ali continues after a pause because she needs to get this out of her chest and let this girl know that there are still things that she can't share, and its for Emily's safety. Emily nods in understanding but remains silent.

After a few minutes have passed.

Emily takes another half step towards the blonde and says 'So, What do we do now?'

Ali not being able to resist the beautiful brunette any longer, takes another step towards the brunette and slowly puts her arms on her shoulders giving enough time to Emily to jerk her away, but when Emily rests her arms around Ali's hips and draws her closer, Ali's breath hitches in her throat and she just lets out two words against Emily's lips, 'We wait'. No more words are necessary as Emily closes the distance between their lips, and a slow dance of their lips begin, they are mostly exchanging their pent up emotions towards each other. The kiss is sweet, it feels like culmination of their troubled times, because when they are in each other's arms all their problems trickle away. Emily tastes something salty on blonde's lips and she realises that Ali has been crying. Emily tries to break their kiss to look at Ali, but when Ali doesn't let go, Emily just holds her tightly in her arms bringing her as close as possible. Their kiss gets passionate as they open the gates of their reserved frustration over being apart, Ali pours her heart out in this kiss, all her longing for this amazing person in her arms. Ali knows that this is her only haven and heaven. Emily finally feels like she found the missing piece of herself.

Flashback

'Looks like I can't catch a break', Emily thinks to herself looking at the blonde who is sleeping in her bed, 'This day can't seem to come to an end.' 'But, What was that? All those Ali's antics they still make me fluffy inside. There is something seriously wrong with me?' She is fatigued now, thinking of all the things, it has been a rather long day for her and she is emotionally not in a place to think about all these things. But somehow, sleep is still miles away from her, probably because Alison Dilaurentis is asleep in her bed and if the two nights she spent with her since she has been back are any proof then she can't seem to be able to sleep next to the blonde.

She sighs and goes to her window seat once again, where there is a bookshelf next to the seat. She looks through the books and a dog eared copy of 'Great Expectations' catches her eye. She scoffs at nobody in particular, mostly at her life. She knows she has had that book for too long now, she has it the day that A planted her letter in this book and made her live all her beautiful and troubled times with Ali on that stormy day, but she has kept her distance from the book. This book holds a lot of importance in her life, it is the day she felt for the first time that Ali could probably love her back, it was the first time she had kissed her. But, before today looking at it only reminded her of Ali's absence from her world, the pain of missing her would become unbearable at times but she would think that at least Ali is at a better place than Rosewood, and that she doesn't have to go through what they are going through with A, and that thought used to settle her.

Today, she knows her mind and her heart are both confounding her, so she picks up the book. She lightly runs her hand through the words 'Great Expectations' which adorn the book cover. She opens the book and a few pages later there is a page which has been folded, instinctively she goes to that page and there is a passage which has been highlighted, her heart beat quickens at the words she sees, but she reads through, a quote by Pip.

Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.

'Hah' she makes an attempt to laugh, but her heavy heart lets out an imprisoned tear instead. Those words are as true as always and she is in too deep now, that she would ever be able to resurface. God knows she has tried a lot, battled her way, but this love that she harbours for this beautiful blonde has never faded away, time and distance have only amplified her desire for her.

She turned a few more pages and stopped at another quote, by Miss Havisham.

Love her, Love her, Love her! If she favours you love her. If she wounds you, Love her. If she tears your heart to pieces - and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper - Love her, Love her, Love her!

She doesn't even think she has a choice than to Love her.

Thank you guys for your kind words in the reviews, your follows & favourites. As I said earlier, they are keeping me going. I really appreciate you taking out your time and reading this.

As I am writing this story, I am also finding myself as a writer and I have realised that I lack the patience for proof reading and editing (I promise you, I am working on it). So this may have errors, but please bear with me.

I am really glad to have found this website and this community, it has inspired me to write (An idea, I had been toiling with for too long). :)

I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. Please read & review.

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Cheers! Until next time.