Chapter Four

The next day, Rosewood was relatively quiet. It was being washed out by rain; the first downfall of the new season. Aria watching as it hit the window of her last period class with her head on the desk. When the last bell finally rang, she jumped out of her seat and made her way to her mother's classroom.

When she reached it, she poke her head in to see Ella erasing the chalk from the blackboard. She went to sit in one of the desks and rested her head on her arm again.

Ella, having heard her come in, turned around to look at her.

"Hey."

"Hey." Aria echoed.

Ella looked at her daughter, before moving to sit in the desk in front of hers. "You okay?"

Aria nodded her head. "Just tired."

She closed her eyes as Ella ran her fingers through her shortened, hazel locks.

"Why don't you go home and rest?"

Aria sighed and sat up. "Actually I was wondering if I could go hang out with the girls today."

"Of course you can." Ella looked at her skeptically before adding, "You know, if you're going to see him, you don't need to lie about it anymore."

Shaking her head, Aria smiled and replied, "Good to know. But no, I'm seriously going to go hang out the girls. Spencer doesn't want to go home and deal with the screaming newborn."

Ella laughed. "Totally understandable." Then she remembered. "That reminds me of something. Where did you girls go last night? We went out to the waiting room and all of you were gone."

Aria looked down. "We just got kind of spooked. Did you see Garrett?"

Ella sighed. "Yes, I did. Veronica told me last night that he was being put out on parole. He said that Mona made him steal the page from the autopsy. His title as a police officer has been stripped for not turning it in though."

"Oh." Aria replied, nodding her head. "For a while, I actually thought he was the one who killed Ali."

Ella looked at her closely. "If you girls feel like Garrett is a threat to you, let us know. We can take care of it."

"No, no. I understand, a little bit. Mona was… very convincing."

Her mother reached out to her. "You know, your father and I have been talking. Maybe you girls should think about seeing Dr. Sullivan again. No one would look down on you for it; you went through a very difficult situation."

Aria quickly shook her head. "No. That's not necessary."

"Are you sure you don't want to think –"

"Yup. I'm sure."

Ella sighed. "Okay."

Knocking pulled them from their conversation, and the both looked up to see Spencer at the door.

"Hey, you ready?" She asked.

"Yeah." Aria stood. "I'll see you later, mom."

"Bye, sweetie." Ella said, watching her daughter leave the classroom and dropping her head in her hand.

xxx

The girls walked along the streets of Rosewood through the pouring rain, Aria and Spencer huddled under one umbrella, Hanna and Emily the other. Not a lot of people were out due to the weather, so it was relatively quiet besides the sound of the droplets hitting the pavement.

They made their way over to a couple of benches that were covered by the roof of a building blocking the rain. Sitting down, they all looked at each other, thinking.

"What are we going to do?" Emily asked after a few minutes.

"The only thing we really can do. What we've been doing for the last year. Deal with it, and try to figure out who's screwing with us." Spencer said.

"When we do find out whoever it is, there's going to be hell to pay." Hanna glared at the road, lost in her thoughts.

Aria took a deep breath. "So where are we going to start? Almost everything we had before is irrelevant now; it was all Mona's doings."

"I don't know." Spencer whispered. She rested her head in her hand. "I guess we can continue to go through Ali's things, dig deeper into everything we already have, and maybe –A will finally screw up enough for us to catch them."

"How do we know –A is only one person?" Emily asked.

"We don't." Hanna huffed.

"The one thing we need to remember right now is that no one should be trusted. I think we learned that much with Mona." Spencer said, looking sympathetically at Hanna, who hung her head. Aria reached over and grabbed her hand, squeezing it comfortingly.

"I trust Caleb though." Hanna whispered. "I mean, he's been helping us this whole time. He can't be a part of the –A team."

"We don't know that." Spencer muttered.

Hanna's head shot up and she glared at her. "What, are you saying you don't trust Toby? That you think he could do this to you?"

Hurt crossed Spencer's face at the thought. "I do trust him. I'm just scared." She murmured, looking down. "You thought Mona was one of your best friends, and it was so easy for her to torture you like this." She shook her head. "I don't know what I'd do if I found out Toby was part of this."

Aria's heart broke for her friends. She believed quite strongly that Ezra could never be part of –A. She knew how much he loved her. He had put his life and his future on the line to be save their relationship. There wasn't a single ounce of her that believed he was capable of doing something like this to her.

"Okay, I don't think we need to torture ourselves that much." Emily said softly. "If you feel someone has earned your trust, completely, then you should trust them. So I think our families, Caleb, Toby, and Ezra are safe."

"I'm still not sure about Melissa." Hanna muttered.

"Hanna." Emily scolded.

"No, she's right." Spencer nodded. "We saw Melissa in that video, and she's been acting too strange lately. We can't rule her out."

Aria wrapped her arm around her friend, resting her head on her shoulder.

"What are we doing first?" Emily asked.

Spencer sighed. "No one has gotten any messages since last night, right?"

All the girls shook their heads.

"Then let's just wait. We don't have anything to go off of right now. Just keep your eye on everyone that we've been suspecting, and when we get the next message… we'll figure it out."

The girls all sighed, knowing it wouldn't be that easy.

xxx

Three Days Later

xxx

Aria stretched out, turning to the next page of the book she was reading. She was lying on the bed in Ezra's apartment, waiting for him to come home from the meeting he had after school.

It was Friday afternoon, and the first week back at school was over. Rainclouds still continued to cover the small town and were refusing to let up. To Aria, it seemed like a good indication that the calm before the storm was over. While she hadn't gotten any messages from –A since the night Melissa's baby was born, she knew –A wasn't the type to mess around. All she could do was wait until whoever it was would strike again.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by Ezra leaning over her, water droplets falling from his face onto hers.

Aria dropped the book next to her and laughed, running her fingers though his wet locks.

"Looks like someone forgot an umbrella today."

Ezra hummed and leaned down to kiss her. Aria squealed as his wet body pressed up against hers and pushed him away.

"You're soaked!" She exclaimed, giggling.

"Well yeah, rain tends to do that to you." He mocked her.

He went to lean in for another kiss but she pushed him away. "Go change first." She laughed.

He pouted. "But I missed you."

Ezra began to tickle her sides and pepper kiss her face while she laughed, before she finally gave in and reached up to wrap her arms around his neck.

He moaned as her lips parted against his and pushed his tongue into her mouth. She ran her fingers through his hair, pulling him closer to her.

As their kisses became more passionate, she pushed his jacket down off his shoulders, and he felt her hands travel down to the hem of his tee-shirt. He pulled back a bit so she could slide it over his head, before his lips crashed against hers again.

His hands moved down to her own shirt, beginning to lift it up. They were interrupted by a beeping from the kitchen, causing them both to snap out of the trance they had been in.

Aria groaned, throwing her head back. "I forgot I was making you dinner."

"Aw, thanks baby." Smiling, he leaned down to peck her lips again.

She giggled before pushing him away and sitting up.

She looked down at her clothes, shaking her head. "Thank you for making me almost as wet as you are."

"Don't act like you didn't love that." He smirked at her.

She grabbed a pillow next to her and wacked him with it, causing him to laugh loudly.

"You're an incredibly cocky man, you know that right?" She asked him.

"What can I say; you bring out the best in me."

"Ass." She muttered, before standing up and making her way to the kitchen.

He laughed again, standing up and grabbing a new set of clothing. He tossed one of his shirts to Aria, before walking into the bathroom to change.

Aria took off her wet shirt and pulled on his, before taking the lasagna she prepared out of the oven. She made two plates of it before walking over to the couch, where Ezra joined her shortly after. She leaned against his shoulder as they ate.

"So how'd your first week go?" She asked.

"Pretty good. Most of the students are very involved. I think it's going to be a good year. What about you?"

"Well, I've already been assigned four essays, and my social studies teacher, Mr. Volardi, already hates me." She sighed.

"Why does he hate you?"

"He has terrible grammar skills, and I corrected him on his wording in one of the handouts he gave us. He was so pissed, I was sure he was going to give me a detention."

Ezra laughed, shaking his head. "Anything else happen?"

"Spencer's sister had her baby." Aria whispered.

"She did? Wow. How's she doing?"

Aria took another bite of her food. "Okay. She's really excited that Taylor's finally here, but Spencer says that she gets really sad sometimes. Probably because of Ian."

Ezra pressed his lips to her forehead. "It must be really tough, losing the father to your child."

She nodded. "Especially after finding out he was also completely psychotic."

One look at Aria's face told Ezra it was time to drop the conversation. He quickly changed the subject.

"Are you staying over tonight?" He asked hopefully.

She smiled up at him. "I think I can arrange that."

As Ezra went to put their dishes in the sink, she pulled out her phone and shot a quick text to Spencer.

"Hey, can you be my

alibi tonight?

~Aria"

While her mother was becoming more accepting of their relationship, Aria doubted she would be okay with her sleeping over at Ezra's.

He came back over and wrapped his arms around her. Her phone buzzed with her response shortly after.

"Sure thing. Have fun with

Fitzy tonight, and tell him

I said "you're welcome". ;)

~Spencer"

Ezra snorted and shook his head, having read the message over her shoulder. His lips tugged up at the corners though. Aria quickly dialed her mom's cell, before placing the phone to her ear.

"Hey sweetie." Her mom answered.

"Hi mom." She replied. "Is it okay if I sleepover at Spencer's house tonight? We've got those essays that we want to work on together."

"Of course, as long as her mother's okay with it."

"Yeah, she said it was fine."

"Okay, well get some fun in while writing those essays." Her mother said.

Aria smirked, shaking her head. "I'll try."

"See you tomorrow. Love you."

"Love you too, mom." She hung up the phone and looked up at her boyfriend.

"Done." She smiled.

"Mm, good." He replied, bringing his lips down to hers again.

When they pulled away, he asked her, "Do you want to watch a movie?"

"Sure."

They decided on To Kill a Mockingbird, even though both of them had seen the movie and read the book plenty of times.

Aria woke up some time later to the credits rolling across the screen, and realized they must have fallen asleep in the midst of watching it. She sat up, yawning. Her stirring awoke Ezra, who stretched slightly.

"We missed the movie. Again." She smiled. Whenever they tried to watch a movie, it seemed it always ended with them engaged in a heavy make out session or passed out on the couch.

Ezra laughed, watching as she stretched her arms over her head. His tee-shirt that she was wearing rose up with her arms, exposing the lower part of her waist.

He sat up, pressing his lips to the side of her neck. She sighed as he began to suck gently on her skin. She moved her head to kiss him softly, before standing up. She pulled him up with her, pressing her lips to his again, before pulling him back over to the bed to finish what they started earlier.

xxx

The sound of thunder woke Aria up the next morning. Her eyes opened slowly, and she looked out the window to see that it was still raining in Rosewood.

She turned her head to see Ezra sleeping soundly next to her, his arm draped over her waist. She reached up and pushed his hair back from his forehead.

He hummed, nuzzling the side of his face into the pillows, before stilling again. She smiled slightly at him, before reaching over to the nightstand and grabbing her phone.

She tapped the screen intending to see what time it was, but instead she was met with a new text message. As she opened it, the smile slipped from her face and her stomach rolled uneasily; the sense of peace she felt a few moments ago, gone.

"Some things don't change.

I wonder what daddy would

say if he found out whose bed

you were REALLY spending the

night in.

-A."

Aria took in a shaky breath, before locked her phone, tossing it on the bed besides her. She looked out the window at the clouds rolling in the sky, as a tear rolled down her cheek.

Author's Notes: I just want to thank all of you so much. You guys are so sweet, and I love the feedback you've been giving me. I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter!