A/N: I took a bit of an artistic liberty here with Ezra at the beginning, but tried to keep it as accurate as possible, so I think that should help a little?

Also, I wanted to make sure I posted this with the previous chapter because of where it ends. There's an option to continue this for a chapter or two (maybe three) if ya'll want it, diving a bit into the future. That said, I also really like the ending of this.

Steady Heart, Shaking Hands

Ezra thanked god every day that Spencer's parents didn't feel that the doors inside the house needed to be anything special. He was also incredibly grateful that they'd updated the place a lot in the years that they'd owned the place. So while the bathroom door looked heavy and expensive, it was hollow and easy enough to break through.

When he'd called her, he'd only been meaning to reach out and see if she'd head from Aria-he wanted to make sure she was okay-and instead he found out that she was at Spencer's house. Spencer had been the one to insist he come over, because she was worried. Ezra had been less sure about making the trip, but Spencer insisted. So he'd driven over.

When he'd arrived, Spencer had been hysterical, telling him that Aria had locked herself in the bathroom and was hurting herself. He wanted to yell at the girl and tell her that she was stupid to let Aria wander off when she was apparently so upset, but he was far more worried when he heard the cries coming from the bathroom. So instead, he sent Spencer off in search of a hammer and threw himself against the door. Repeatedly.

He'd watched a show recently-he couldn't remember what-where they'd talked about how doors don't actually get broken down by someone slamming into them. But Ezra didn't have the time to wait for a battering ram or for Spencer to remember where her parents kept the key, or even for Spencer to find a hammer. So he used what he did have-his body.

His body hurt like hell when the door finally fell open, having successfully knocked the door off its its hinges. In the end, he royally fucked up his shoulder and broken several bones, but Aria was alive. She was bleeding a lot, and rather despondent, but she was alive.

She didn't speak to him that first night, and all he did was stay at her side. When people asked why he was called up, he threw out the excuse that he was a friend of Aria's family since working at Hollis, and the only person Spencer could think to call.

He said nothing to the police about Aria-truthfully, he knew nothing-and neither did Spencer. When they inevitably reached the hospital, Spencer waited in the waiting room while Aria was taken off into one room and Ezra was taken to another.

Four hours and a million X-rays later, he was finally released with a doctors number and an appointment set with an orthopedic surgeon for the following afternoon to have surgery on his shoulder. His very busted shoulder.

He wanted to know how Aria was doing, but by the time he was released from the hospital-nearly one AM-the Montgomery's had left, and Spencer was nowhere in sight either. He considered calling them, but then thought better of it and instead headed home after calling Hardy and telling him an abridged version of the story. While his best friend was most definitely a partier and playboy, he was also the one person Ezra could count on to help him out when he was incapacitated.

Days passed. Ezra saw the surgeon, and a date for surgery was set. He put together a number of lesson plans and passed them on to Byron, who passed them on to the substitute. Ezra planned to return to work two weeks after surgery-one if he was feeling good-but the days before he went in, the pain was high enough to make him want to tear his hair out. So instead, he followed his pain prescription to the letter and spent a majority of the time sleeping, and the rest of it telling Hardy what to stuff into boxes and move across town. Hardy had a two-bedroom apartment and more room than Ezra's little studio apartment.

The day of surgery came a week later, and he still knew nothing of what Aria was going through. Byron stopped in to wish him good luck, but he didn't share any information. The most that Ezra knew was that she'd been put into a seventy-two hour psych hold after being brought in, as it was mandatory. He knew nothing else.

His hospital stay was short, and he returned home-or rather, to Hardy's home-the following day. The first two days passed in a haze of pain medication and sleep, and no phone calls from Aria.

The second week passed, and there was still no communication. And then a third passed. When Ezra returned to Hollis, he still knew nothing. Byron told him nothing. Not a word was said to him on the subject of Aria Montgomery.

Five and a half weeks after he broke down a bathroom door to keep her from killing herself, Ezra had heard nothing from his ex-girlfriend. He'd started giving up on the hope that he would, and packed boxes of his possessions to move across town into Hardy's apartment. His insurance wasn't covering crap, and Hardy had offered him a place to stay at just a morsel of the price he was paying for his tiny apartment.

He'd had a box that contained the paper bags Aria had made, and letters she'd written him, tucked underneath his arm that cold December evening when he'd opened the door. Christmas was three days away, and he wanted to be out before New Years.

He dropped the box when he saw her standing at his door.

No one spoke for well over a minute. Ezra was surprised to see Aria in front of him, and for all appearances, Aria didn't know what to say. They just stared at each other.

Aria gulped. "Sorry. I...am I interrupting you?"

Ezra shook his head quickly. "I was just moving more boxes."

Aria nodded, glancing up at his shoulder. Her gaze dropped to the floor.

"Did you want to come in?" Ezra asked. His voice was tentative, nervous. He didn't know what the protocol was for this.

Aria looked back up at him. "I just...I wanted to apologize. For everything."

Ezra nodded, opening his door further. "Come in."

Aria looked terrified, but after a pregnant moment, she stepped through the doorway into the apartment. Ezra closed the door and then headed into the kitchenette. He grabbed a can of soda from the fridge and popped the seal before taking a drink.

"I know I should've reached out sooner," Aria said softly as she stood next to the doorway. "I just...didn't know what to say. I kept thinking the words would come, and they didn't."

Ezra swallowed down a large gulp of his sode and settled it on the counter. "I expected you to apologize."

Aria raised an eyebrow at him, like what he was saying was utterly arbitrary. "Ezra, I cheated on you."

Ezra nodded. "I know."

"That's not okay," Aria told him, as though he didn't actually know.

Ezra nodded again. "I know that too."

Aria's chin trembled and she glanced down again, lifting her hands to pick at her fingernails. "Then, I don't understand..."

Ezra crossed the room, standing in front of her. He made no move to touch her, because didn't want to scare her. He just stood before her. "You didn't do that because you hated me Aria, or because you wanted to hurt me. I knew from the moment I realized what was going on-and how long it must've been going on-that it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with what was going on in here," he said as he gently touched her head with his index finger.

"Furthermore, I knew it was him with a real handle on the control. There are expressions that people's faces make, that the person they're with don't see when they're together. Small and almost invisible, but they're there. And I could see it all when I saw him."

Aria's eyes climbed a trail from Ezra's shoes to his shirt, and finally his face. "You should hate me. I hurt you."

Ezra shook his head. "No, I hate him. And that is who I should hate; as should you. You were vulnerable, and he took advantage of that when he should've known better."

Aria whimpered. She reached a hand up and wiped a tear from her face. "Everyone keeps telling me that, and on a level of logic, I know they're right...but I can't seem to get that through my head."

"Are you talking to someone about it?" Ezra asked.

Aria nodded. "Almost all the time, it seems."

She finally took the time to look around the room, and then glance back at Ezra. She was confused.

"Where is all your stuff?"

"I'm moving," he explained. "The surgery cost a lot of money, and my insurance isn't helping much. The only way I could cover a payment plan was to give this place up. Hardy offered me his spare room for a lot less, so I'm gonna go there for a while."

"Oh god, Ezra, I did this to you." Aria looked sad all over again.

"No," he insisted. "I did this to me. And I've got assets to work with, Aria. Don't worry about me. I've got this covered."

Aria looked at him skeptically. It was clear that she didn't believe him.

"I'll be fine," he promised her. "Tell me more about you."

Aria filled a number of boxes with Ezra's books that night, and she told him about her twenty-nine days in treatment. Ezra was surprised when she shared that number with him, but in retrospect, he fully understood it, considering how she'd been found. She explained how she'd spent a number of hours in therapy already, talking about anything and everything.

She didn't mention whether Austin Henderson was caught for whatever he'd done to Aria, and Ezra didn't ask. Words didn't need to be spoken between them for him to understand what had happened to her. If she wanted to tell him one day, he'd listen, but he didn't feel the need to know. Instead, he let her tell him stories, and he listened when she laughed and watched when she smiled. Most of all, he was grateful for every second of it, because it'd been nearly a year since he'd seen her genuinely happy.

After that night, they stayed in touch, but there was no sudden move forward to get back together. All Ezra was worried about was Aria being healthy, and she seemed to be on the same page so he left her alone when she needed it, and he was open to seeing her when she wanted to.

Christmas came and went with little communication. Aria called him once to check in and tell wish him a merry Christmas. Ezra didn't push. In a way, he stopped trying all together.

Valentines day was a week away, and the new term had just started when Aria finally gathered up the courage to try and talk to Ezra about their relationship. They'd spent a lot of time together sharing reading material and talking about various movies, but months had passed with an actual conversation about where they were going.

She knew part of of it had to do with herself and all the issues she'd gone through the previous year. She knew she'd failed him in more ways than she could even count, and she was only starting to reach a point where she was able to not blame herself so much. Recovery took time, she told herself. That's what her therapist and parents said every day.

She bounced her phone between her hands as she chewed on her bottom lip, waiting for other people to empty the parking lot of Rosewood Day. She was at least ten cars behind, and people were taking their sweet time pulling out.

Exhaling a nervous breath, she looked down at her phone and woke it up. She opened her contacts and then scrolled to Ezra's name, staring at it nervously for a few moments. She always panicked when she got to this point.

In a moment of haste, she tapped the button on the screen and then lifted her phone to her ear, listening nervously for the sound of the ringtone.

The phone began to ring.

"Don't pick up, don't pick up, don't pick up," she muttered to herself as she watched two cars pull out of the parking lot.

"Hey, what's up?"

Aria gulped. Her heart started to hammer in her chest. "I- er- uh, are...can I talk to you? I'm just leaving school."

"Sure. What's crackin'?"

Aria chuckled. Ezra's attempt to 'get current with the lingo' was not going over well. It was an endeavor he'd set out on over the past few weeks when he made a comment with the word 'groovy' and 'word' itself. She and Hardy had teased him relentlessly for days afterward.

"I meant in person," she replied. "Are you home?"

"Nah, I'm at Hollis for a few more hours. Late class. I'm free for like half an hour though if you hurry."

Aria exhaled a long breath. The last thing she wanted was for her father to know that she was seeking out Ezra again. Byron had become far too comfortable with Aria and Ezra being just friends. In fact, he was downright giddy about it. It annoyed Aria.

"Alright. I'll be there in a bit."

"Sounds good."

Aria ended the call a moment later and sighed as she dropped her phone into the center console. Talking about anything that resembled a relationship with Ezra made her nervous. She was already a screw-up. Fortunately, driving required ninety-five percent of her focus, so she couldn't really think about it while she drove.

The drive to Hollis took a bit longer than it should have because of road closures. A storm had hit Rosewood the week before and with it came freezing rain that caused some major pot holes around the city. The restoration society was trying to push for new roads to be paved, but Rosewood residents who'd been around for decades were against it.

Aria just hated that it took her ten minutes more to get anywhere in town.

When she reached Hollis, she had to wait through another corral of passing cars before she could get into the Arts & Literature parking lot. By the time she'd gotten in, she barely had ten minutes to spare before Ezra would be running off to wherever else he had to go, so she turned her car off and then jumped out of her car and started running towards the doors. She nearly slipped a number of times, but her quick movements kept her from doing so. She would've slammed into the door had someone not been opening it as she was moving towards it, and she just managed to catch herself as she stepped onto the linoleum.

Once inside the building, she walked towards Ezra's office a bit slower, if only not to get yelled at. Once she turned down his hall though, he was standing outside the door chatting with another teacher. He glanced up at her and waved.

As Aria approached, the other teacher turned and walked away, and Ezra turned and headed back into the office with her tailing behind him.

"I wasn't sure you'd make it," he commented as she closed the door.

"I ran from the parking lot," she responded. Ezra turned towards her as he passed around his desk.

"So what'd you want to talk about?"

Aria inhaled a deep breath, trying to get some air into her lungs first. It was a tricky question, and yet one that she wanted a direct answer for. It didn't help that she was still nervous as hell.

"I just..." She fought the urge to chew her lip in all her anxiety. They didn't have time for her to panic. "I wanted to ask you a question about...this."

Ezra nodded, grabbing his coffee cup. He took a sip from it and then replaced it. "What about us?"

"Well, it's just that we-"

"Ezra?"

The door opened behind Aria as his name drifted through the air, and she glanced back to see a blond woman standing there. She was gorgeous, and small like Aria. She had big blue eyes and curly hair...and a teacher's guide book on her arm.

Aria glanced back at Ezra and straightened her shoulders. Maybe she was stupid, or maybe she'd just waited too long. She wasn't entirely sure.

"I should go," she said suddenly. She didn't wait for anyone to answer her comment, and instead headed out of the room.

She started out wandering aimlessly. She knew better than to find herself alone somewhere when she was feeling down, so instead she drove to Wrights park and then took her earphones from her purse and grabbed her phone before heading into the park.

She opened her music library and started up the playlist she'd created for when she needed a pick-me-up. It was a mix of seventies, eighties, and nineties music along with girly pop music to get her moving a little bit. As she listened to the playlist, she trudged through the snow up to the swings. When she reached them, she pushed one of them to make the snow stacked on the seat fall off before she leaned back into it, letting her coat keep her bum from getting wet.

She didn't move very fast, instead just lightly pushing herself back and forth as she listened to the music.

The part of her that pitied herself wanted to wallow in a missed opportunity. She still loved Ezra-she'd never actually stopped. The issues with her spending time with Austin had more to do with trying to run from her problems than it ever did anything else. She wanted attention from someone who didn't know about what she'd been through. After that night at Spencer's place though...there wasn't a single person in Rosewood that didn't know what had happened on some level or another.

Even so, she hadn't felt able to jump right back into a relationship after getting out of the hospital. Her doctor actually encouraged against it, telling her to take time to 'be with herself' and learn to trust the people she loved again. It was during that time that she'd realized how much Ezra didn't care about her baggage. That wasn't to say he didn't care about her-he did very much. But he didn't care about the fact that she had PTSD and cringed sometimes when he touched her, or that she screamed when she had nightmares. He supported every choice she made, almost to the point where it made her want to hate him, because he treated her better than she deserved.

She sighed heavily and rested her head against the chain on her left. Ezra deserved happiness, and she would have to learn to let that be with someone else.

She spent a while longer on the swing, letting the music play while she mouthed along to the words and unconsciously moved her feet to the beat.

When the sun started to set, she knew her parents would be calling to ask where she was. She started moving towards her car.

It occurred to her as she walked that the last time she'd been at Wrights park was when she broke up with Ezra. She couldn't help but glance up in the direction of Austin's house-or at least where his house used to be-as she recalled that night. She'd given up so much out of stupidity.

If there was one way she was sure that Ezra cared about her, it was in the fact that while she'd been in the hospital, Austin's house had mysteriously had a massive fire. The house was completely leveled and nothing was left behind. Rosewood PD investigated-or claimed to, at least-but conveniently turned up nothing. That fact didn't really surprise Aria either, considering how openly hateful people were about Austin Henderson. They wanted nothing to do with him or anything he did-and didn't-do for Rosewood.

She got into her car a few moments later and took in the sights around her as she started the engine. She didn't visit Wrights much anymore, and she didn't really want to. It held a lot of bad memories she didn't want to recall.

She pulled away from the park a few minutes afterwards and headed towards home. As she did, her phone rang in the passenger seat with a call from Ella. Ella would be wondering where she was, and why she hadn't told her where she was headed when she left school. Ella and Byron hovered now-even more than they used to. Aria didn't mind it...that much.

She was surprised though, as she pulled up into her driveway, to spot a silver camry sitting in her driveway. She pulled her car up behind his and then grabbed her things and headed up towards the house.

When she stepped inside, Ella immediately called out her name. She responded back and began removing her things, kicking her boots off by the door and dropping her school bag nearby. As she was unsheathing her coat, Ezra walked into the foyer.

"Hey," he said as he came into her view.

"Hi," she said softer.

"Aria, that girl earlier today-"

"It's alright," she told him as she turned to face him. Without her shoes, she had to tilt her head up to see him. "You deserve to be happy."

"So do you, but that's not what I was here to say," he commented.

"Ezra, don't worry about it. I'm happy for you, no matter who you're with."

Ezra sighed, reaching out and clamping his hands on her biceps. Aria flinched, but she didn't push him off her.

"She's not my girlfriend," he told her. "I've been waiting for someone else."

Aria raised an eyebrow. "Ezra..."

"I've never wanted to push you," he continued. "I've always wanted to wait for you to come back to me...if you wanted to. I-"

She pushed up onto her tip toes and pressed her lips against his. It was closed-mouthed, but there was a world of heat behind it anyway.

Ezra's hands loosened and dropped from her arms, and Aria dropped back against the floor a few seconds later. Neither of them spoke for a minutes, and the only sound that emitted was from the other room.

"Shit!" Ella growled as something clattered onto the floor. Aria and Ezra smirked, giggling softly.

His hands moved slowly between her arms and her body, resting lightly on her ribs. He smiled wider at her, and she smiled back at him. A few seconds later, she felt the pull of his hands lifting her forward, and she wrapped her hands around his neck, meeting him in the middle as he kissed her once more.

No rush, no force. Everything in mediation. Yep, this was good.

Even better, this was perfect.