Blair stared at the plate of food in front of her and pulled a funny face, Petra had made her breakfast but she didn't really have an appetite given that today was Alison's funeral. Today was the day that they were all supposed to get closure over everything that happened in regards to Alison's disappearance and death but there were more questions than answers. They didn't even know when or how Alison had died but as Blair reminded herself that wasn't the focus of the day. In the last couple of days Blair had calmed down quite considerably and had become less emotional although she cried this morning when her dad walked though the door at 9am after catching one of the earliest flights that morning so he could be with her. Blair had told him not come home, to stay in New York but she should have known better than to think her dad wouldn't come home.
Blair's dad Reed always wanted to have a child, to be a parent because of his father John who had always a positive influence in his life. So when he was 26 years old Reed Swanson set out to become a father using his sperm, an egg donor and a surrogate. Nine months later he became the proud father of a beautiful baby girl with small tuff of auburn hair and blue. He raised Blair as a single parent while balancing his writing career and loved her more than anything else in the world. Reed Swanson was the kind of parent who there for every school play and all that other stuff. If not then it was Petra, the Swanson's housekeeper who had been with them since just before Blair was born.
"Just because your speaking in another language doesn't mean I don't know that you're talking about me." Blair casually said looking over to her dad and Petra who speaking very quietly in what Blair believed was Polish. They couldn't talk in German as Blair was very fluent due to Petra speaking to her in polish since she was born. So they spoke in Polish, which annoyed Blair to no end.
"Liebling you need to eat something, I know that today is a difficult day but you need your strength." Petra said, whilst Petra wasn't a live in housekeeper ever since Alison's body had been discovered she had been staying over at the house so she could be with Blair.
"Petra's right sweetheart, you've barely eaten in days." Reed added and rather reluctantly Blair picked up her knife and fork and began to eat her breakfast. They did have a point and the last thing Blair wanted to do was collapse at the funeral. "Have you spoken to the girls?"
Blair nodded and waited until she had swallowed what she was chewing before she speaking. "I've spoken to Aria quite a bit and Hanna called me last night whilst Spencer sent me a text earlier. I haven't from Emily but Aria says she's doing okay, just in shock really like the rest of us…"
"What about Robert?" Petra asked.
"He called this morning to see how I was doing and if he could do anything, Rob's going to meet us at the church." Blair wearily said as she continued eating, Petra had been very surprised to see Mike with Blair instead of Rob when she had come over the night Alison's body had been found. Blair had to admit that Rob had been great the last couple of days which had just made everything harder. Blair knew that after the funeral she needed to finally decide what she was going to do about the Rob situation as Mike being back in Rosewood had complicated things even further.
Blair sat at the breakfast bar and finished eating her breakfast before going upstairs to get ready for the funeral. Up until today Blair hadn't been to a funeral of someone she had known, well she had been to funerals before but never to one of someone close to her. The closest she had come was her grandmother's funeral eight years ago. But that was a bit wishy washy given that her family had been estranged from her grandmother for over twenty years. It all started when Blair's father came out when he was sixteen years old to his family and it didn't go quite as expected. Whilst his father John and brother Grady were accepting of his sexuality, his mother Sylvia wasn't. From what Blair had been told by her Uncle Grady, her grandfather had enough of his wife refusing to accept their son for who he was and divorced her seven months after her father had come out. None of them had seen her since until the news of her death. They went to the funeral only for the service and that was it.
When it came time to head to the funeral Blair asked if they could take separate cars as she needed sometime to get her head together. When Blair arrived at the church she was met by Rob, who placed a kiss on her cheek. "Hey, how are you doing?"
"Better than before, it's just that this whole thing is so surreal and I can't believe that I'm actually here at Ali's funeral. It's finally sinking in that after today she'll actually be gone and we'll never see her again. I have no idea what I'm going to say to her family…" Blair wearily admitted which caused Rob to take her hand.
"Just say what feels right, they know that you loved Alison." Rob said and Blair nodded in agreement. "Is that your dad over there with Petra? I thought he was still in New York?"
"He was but he took an early flight this morning so he could be here." Blair replied as she saw her father talking to other mourners. Looking around Blair could only guess that there were close to a hundred people standing outside which was a bit insane but she didn't dwell on this too much as her and Rob made their way inside to the church. Given the amount of people finding somewhere to sit was of vital importance and as she walked in with Rob, Petra and her father she came face to face with Mr. and Mrs. DiLaurentis; Alison's parents.
"Blair, it's so good to see you again." Mrs. DiLaurentis wearily said.
"Mr and Mrs. DiLaurentis I'm so sorry that it's under these circumstances." Blair said as Mrs. DiLaurentis took her free hand in her own.
"Thank you Blair, you being here would have meant a lot to our daughter, you and the other girls meant a lot to Alison." Mr. DiLaurentis said and Blair managed a small smile. She hadn't seen the DiLaurentis family since they moved away but they looked the same as when Blair had last saw them with the same exhausted and strained looks they had on their faces. But this time they now looked heartbroken too.
"Blair I was thinking that you along with the other girls could sit up front with me, I figured that's what Alison would want as you were all her best friends." Mrs. DiLaurentis stated and Blair briefly glanced over at Rob and her family.
"Of course." Blair replied letting go of both Rob and Mrs. DiLaurentis' hands and making her way up to the front of the church t the empty pew that Mrs. DiLaurentis had pointed her in the direction of. Blair sat by herself very much aware of the people looking at her despite not being able to see them but she could very much here them. But Blair did nothing to acknowledge them, she just sat there in silence until she was joined by Emily, Spencer and Hanna. "Thank goodness, I was losing my mind sitting here by myself… Nice dress Hanna."
"Thanks Blair." Hanna replied and Blair couldn't help but roll her eyes in bemusement.
"I can't believe that we're actually here and that Ali's dead." Emily wearily said and Blair slowly nodded and it was clear to her that maybe Emily wasn't as fine as Aria led her to believe.
"I know." Spencer murmured.
"Never thought that this would happen." Hanna added and the four of them sat there and stared at the enlarged photo of Alison that was propped up near her coffin. Until Aria arrived and hey all moved down to let her join them.
"Poor Ali." Emily quietly said.
"Can you believe what a scene this is?" Hanna asked referring to the countless people that were here for the funeral. The whole thing seemed like a rather extravagant affair which seemed to have captured the essence of Alison DiLaurentis perfectly in Blair's opinion. Ali was one of those girls who loved being the centre attention and was annoyed when the spotlight was away from here for too long even at her own funeral. But there was no chance of that happening.
"Alison would have loved it." Aria noted.
"Course she would although she'd probably ask why there wasn't more cute boys…" Blair added.
"Popular in life and death." Spencer said and Blair couldn't help but agree with that as it summer Alison up perfectly. The five of them sat that pondering their thoughts when Hanna opened up her bag and handed her flask of no doubt alcohol over to Emily.
"No thanks. I don't—" Emily began.
"Today, I think you do." Hanna reasoned and Emily slowly nodded before taking a swing of the flask before handing it over to Blair, who was glad that she did have breakfast. As drinking on an empty stomach never ended well for her, as Blair took a swing of the flash Aria's phone went off and they couldn't help but look over in curiosity as everyone knew what today was. So the who hell would be testing her just before a funeral started?
"Anyone we know?" Blair couldn't help but ask.
"No, it's just my mom sending me a text." Aria slowly began glancing at her phone before turning to her friends with an odd look on her face which Blair couldn't decipher. "Emily and I aren't the only ones who got messages from 'A' are we?"
Blair felt her stomach drop at the mention of receiving a message from A and based on the looks on Hanna and Spencer's faces they too received a message. A part of Blair was relieved that she hadn't been the only one to receive a mysterious message from this A although it did make her worry that someone was targeting them all.
"Oh, my god… It's Jenna." Spencer announced.
"Shut up!" Hanna stated as her along with the Blair and the other girls all turned in their seat to see that it was Jenna being assisted in sitting down in one of the pews on the other side of the church.
"What is she doing here?" Blair couldn't help but ask as Jenna being here at Alison's funeral and back in Rosewood made no sense. Last time any of them had heard Jenna was somewhere in Philadelphia at a school for the blind after her accident. So seeing her was a big shock to the system. Hanna looked like she was going to say something but she stopped when Mrs. DiLaurentis came and sat down with them.
"Did you see that Jenna Marshall was here? I didn't realize she and Ali were friends." Mrs.. DiLaurentis began and Blair didn't even know how to respond to that.
"They weren't." Spencer eventually said and Blair couldn't help but look back over her shoulder to look at Jenna. It didn't make any sense as Alison and Jenna weren't even friend, she was pretty sure that the two of them hated each other. Which begged the question why was Jenna here at the funeral?
Blair was starting to believe in coincidences, first Ali's body turning up days after the one year anniversary of her disappearance. Then Jenna coming back to town after 'The Jenna Things' had been mention for the first time in months. Blair didn't like it, she didn't like it at all. But she had to put all of those thoughts to the back of her mind as the service began and they began to say goodbye to Alison.
An hour and a half later they came out of the church after the service had finished, it had been a beautiful service and Blair felt herself close to welling up on several occasions especially when it came time to bury Alison. But having Emily, Hanna, Aria and Hanna with her kept her going and the four of them walked out witch each other. Now that the majority of it was over, Blair felt like there had been a huge weight had been lifted of her shoulder and it was clear her friends felt the same way.
"Emily, Blair, Spencer, Aria and Hanna?"
"Do we know you?" Spencer asked on behalf of the group as a tall blonde man who Blair didn't recognized approached them. But it was clear that he knew who they were.
"I'm Detective Wilden. I understand you were all good friends with the victim."
"Yeah, we were." Aria slowly said.
"I'm gonna need to talk to each one of you." Wilden said and Blair wasn't too sure what was going on but she wasn't going to jump to conclusions, especially in front of a cop. But she couldn't believe that this guy had the audacity to approach them just after they had buried Alison.
"We talked to the police when Alison went missing." Blair politely informed him as she didn't understand why he wanted to talk to them. They had spoken to the police already and surely if he wanted to know what happened all he had to do was look at the statements they had given over a year ago.
"And I intend to go over every one of your statements as this is no longer a missing persons investigation. It's a murder. Rest assured, I will find out what happened that summer." Detective Wilden promised and Blair wasn't sure whether that was a promise or a badly veiled threat. Whatever it was, it didn't sound good.
"Do you think he knows about?" Aria began.
"No. How could he?" Hanna quickly reasoned.
"Hanna's right, no one else knows about that apart from us except for Ali and she's not going to be talking to anyone anytime soon. Unless Wilden pulls out an Ouija board and tries talking to her from beyond the grave. We just need to stay calm and remind ourselves that there is no need to panic–" Blair said before being interrupted by the sound of her phone along with several other going of and judging by the close proximity of the noise. She realized it was the other girls phones and they each pulled out their individual phones.
"Oh, my god!" Aria slowly began.
"It's from—" Hanna murmured.
"A." Blair wearily finished glancing up briefly from her phone to look at the others.
"I got one too." Emily added.
"I'm still here, bitches…" Spencer began reading out the text.
" ...And I know everything. A'." They all finished simultaneously before looking at each other, there was no way that these texts were coming from Alison as they had just buried her. It was impossible. But apparently something else was going on if they were being hounded by this mystery A.
"H-How is then even happening–" Emily stammered.
Blair shook her had. "We can't talk about this, at least not here given that there is a cop sniffing around… So we pay our respects to the DiLaurentis' for a little while longer, mingle and make small talk with people here and then we slip away…"