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That Night
Quinn could hardly take it anymore, the secrets and the lying. What could she do to stop A though, without ruining her life and the people that she cared about? She was also starting to worry more about this whole situation with Garrett. It wasn't normal for someone to continue to behave like this, especially when they hadn't been together that long.
These thoughts, mixed with one serious hangover, made her head spin as she laid on the couch. She thought to call Jason, but she didn't know how to have that conversation. How did you call and ask one ex-boyfriend to protect you against another, especially when they used to be best friends? Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door, each knock making her head throb.
"Ugh, coming," Quinn muttered, peeling herself from the couch to answer the door. When she got there, Hardy was standing there with flowers. He was wearing what she assumed were his hangover clothes, old jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. She was still in hers, her leggings and big sweatshirt.
"Hey," she said, a little surprised; she noticed the multi-colored daisies. "Oh God, were those sitting outside my door?"
"No," Hardy said in confusion. "I got you these." He looked her over once. "Why did you think they were outside your door?"
"Ah," Quinn said, trying to think of a lie as she let him in. "Girl next door broke up with her boyfriend. He's been desperately sending her flowers everyday, sometimes they get delivered to the wrong place." Hardy nodded, setting them on the table.
"Well, these are sorry I got you so drunk you couldn't help your sister flowers," Hardy explained. "I'm sorry about last night. Was everything ok?"
"Everything was fine," Quinn promised. She went over to sit on the couch and Hardy joined her. "And, you don't have to be sorry." She gave him a small smile. "I'm perfectly capable of making bad, drink too much decisions on my own." Hardy nodded, noticing the glass of water on the coffee table next to the bottle of aspirin.
"Lazy hang over day?" Hardy asked her, a bit amused; Quinn nodded, laughing. "Mind if I crash it?"
"Not at all," Quinn told him, pulling the blanket off the back of the couch to share with him.
Flashback, last summer
Quinn stumbled out of Jason's room, angry. His parents were away and they had hosted a party earlier that evening while Alison and the other girls stayed in the Hastings' barn. After most of the people had gone, they stayed at the house and continued to drink. After awhile, Jason started smoking which he knew that she hated. Normally, she didn't say anything about it but tonight she was extremely drunk and they fought about it. Finally, she told him that she wasn't staying that night and stormed out of his room; he didn't follow her.
As she made her way down the hall, running a hand along the wall to keep balanced, she thought she heard Ian's voice in Alison's room and she rolled her eyes. She knew that the two of them together was inappropriate. But, after she had caught them once, Ian knew enough of her secrets to keep her quiet about it. At this point, it had gone on long enough that if she told Jason the truth he would probably be even angrier at her for keeping the secret.
Quinn stumbled out the front door, starting down the front walk of the DiLaurentis house. She saw Melissa coming down the sidewalk and Quinn steered clear of her. Since she and Ian broke up, her and Quinn hadn't had much contact; Quinn preferred to keep it that way. She assumed Melissa was walking home, since her house was right next door to Jason's; she didn't know Melissa had gone inside the DiLaurentis house.
Quinn walked down the sidewalk alone, crossing her arms over herself as the air began to chill. She was furious with Jason for smoking and was even angrier at him now for not coming after her, calling her, or anything. After walking three blocks, she turned the corner for her street, going down four houses. She was surprised to see her father walking up the front steps of the house so late. He was equally surprised to see her.
"Quinn?" he said in concern as she came up the steps, hanging onto the railing as she came up. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," she told him, reaching for the door; it was locked.
"Are you drunk?" he asked, looking her over. He wasn't going to open the door until they talked about what happened to her that night.
"I just want to go inside," she slurred.
"Were you with Jason?" he asked unhappily. Though she had told her parents about her relationship with Jason and they couldn't stop her, he still wasn't crazy about the idea. "He's not good for you Quinn."
"Were you with Meredith?" Quinn snapped back; Byron didn't answer her. "Because she's not good for us."
"Sweetheart-"
"Whatever dad," she muttered, sitting on the wooden swing and eventually laying on it. "Just forget it."
"Quinn, come inside," Byron said firmly. She waved him off, curling up on the swing.
"I won't tell mom," Quinn mumbled, drifting off into sleep.
Quinn woke up early the next morning, the sun shining in her eyes. Feeling like her head was about to explode, she sat up slowly on the swing. Figuring her parents were still in bed, she got up and walked back down the street. Her phone had died, so she decided to head back to Jason's. They had both been drunk and said a lot of stuff they hadn't meant. When she got onto his street though, she could see several police cars in front of his house. She hurried down the rest of the block where she saw Aria and her friends sitting outside on the Hastings' porch; Alison wasn't with them.
"What's going on?" Quinn asked, catching her breath from having run down the street. A million scenarios were running through her head right now, one of them being Alison was inside with her family because Jason had finally taken it too far and drank too much.
"Alison's missing," Aria answered. All the girls had tears in their eyes. "She left the barn last night and never came back."
"Oh, hey Aria," Quinn could hear Hardy saying. She had fallen asleep against his chest as they were watching tv, the blanket over their laps. Aria had come back from the hospital and was standing in the living room, looking a little put off. Quinn figured she hadn't expected to see Hardy there. She also knew that Hardy had given Ezra a difficult time that first night after meeting Aria, which had upset Aria.
"Hey," Aria said, looking between the two of them as Quinn sat up the whole way. "Could I borrow my sister?"
"Ah, yeah," Hardy nodded, like he wouldn't keep Quinn from Aria. "I should probably get going anyway. Call you later?"
"Mhmm," Quinn nodded as he kissed her once, then got up to leave.
"See ya Aria," Hardy said as he left; Aria waved him off as the door shut. She then looked to her sister with raised eye brows.
"What?" Quinn asked.
"I thought that was just a one time thing," Aria commented, taking a seat next to her sister and taking the blanket Hardy had been using to share with her sister.
"It still could be," Quinn shrugged.
"Quinn, you were drooling on him," Aria teased her, making it seem like that made it serious; Quinn rolled her eyes. "What about Jason?"
"We're not having that talk," Quinn said, getting up to get more water.
"Why not?" Aria said, getting up to follow her to the kitchen. "He was the one that took care of you last night and brought you to the hospital. You both obviously still care about each other, so why-"
"Because A threatened you," Quinn finally broke. She couldn't take the constant badgering from her sister about why she had broken up with Jason in the first place. There was only so much Quinn could keep from her younger sister.
"What?" Aria asked in confusion, knowing who her friends thought was A now. "That doesn't make any sense."
"It's such an A thing," Quinn shrugged. "And they've been messing with me way longer than you."
"No," Aria shook her head. "It's just, last night, Hanna saw Noel write on Ezra's car so she thought he was A. Then, when she came to tell us, she got hit by a car and we got a text from A. So we figured..."
"That Noel Kahn is A?" Quinn offered, equally confused now. "That doesn't make any sense. Why would Noel mess with me?"
"Did you or Jason ever have a problem with Eric?" Aria asked in reference to Noel's older brother, leaning against the kitchen door frame as she talked to her sister.
"No," Quinn shook her head. "Not at all. And, even if we did, what does Noel or Eric have to do with Alison?"
"Noel had the problem with Alison," Aria recalled.
"Still though," Quinn said, sipping her water at the counter. "If he had a problem with her, with your group, why bother with me and Jason?" She thought about it. "Messing with you guys makes sense because you were close with her. Any problems with her would extend to you, but I wasn't close with her at all." Truth be told, by the time Alison turned fifteen, Quinn couldn't stand her anymore.
"Maybe A and the killer are different people," Aria pointed out, having considered this theory with her friends.
"Ok, but again," Quinn prepared to repeat. "Why would Noel go through the trouble to break up me and Jason?" She sighed. "Either there's more than one A..."
"Or Noel isn't A in the first place," Aria sighed as well.
"Could he just have been messing with you?" Quinn asked gently. "You two sort of had a thing and seeing you with Ezra probably made him angry."
"I mean, I guess," Aria said, going to take a seat at the table; all of this made her need to sit down. Quinn went out to join her at the seat next to her. "God, we still don't know who A is, do we?"
"I don't think so," Quinn shook her head; she hesitated. "Have you thought about how much trouble Ezra could get in if Noel-"
"If I can't talk about Jason, you can't talk about that," Aria stopped her.
"But this is way more serious," Quinn insisted, not ready to let it go. "Have you talked to Ezra yet?"
"I told him I would meet him at his place tonight," Aria said, not really ready to face the reality of the situation. She ran a hand through her hair nervously, like Quinn always did. "Quinn, can I ask you something?"
"Of course," Quinn nodded.
"Who do you think killed Alison?" Aria asked. "You spent more time in that house around her than anyone. You even went to the beach with them that summer."
"The police just arrested that Toby kid," Quinn deflected, not thinking that he had done it. It was true, Quinn was at the DiLaurentis house more than any of Aria's friends. There were things she found out, like the affair with Ian, that would make people other than Toby look very guilty.
"But you don't think he did it," Aria insisted. "Do you?"
"I think that there's a lot of stuff that happened that summer," Quinn said, her tone cautious. Revealing one secret could snowball into another. "Alison knew a lot of stuff, about a lot of people."
"You think someone killed her to keep her quiet?" Aria asked, with everyone else thinking Toby had done it for revenge; Quinn nodded. "What stuff did she know?"
"Oh shit," Quinn mumbled, running both hands through her hair and gripping it at the back of her neck as she rested her elbows on the table. She needed to come clean to her sister about everything. "Aria, there's a lot of stuff I need to tell you about. Things about me, Jason...our parents-"
"Mom and dad?" Aria cut her off. "What about them? What do they have to do with this?"
"It has to do with stuff Alison knew about me," Quinn confessed. "If you find this stuff out later, from someone else, it might look..." She wasn't sure how to say it. "Bad."
"Bad?" Aria asked with raised eye brows. "Bad as in you killed Alison?"
"I didn't!" Quinn shook her head quickly. "I was passed out on the porch all night after I got in a fight with dad."
"I'm not saying you did it," Aria promised. "I just...God, Quinn, what kind of stuff is it?" Aria had no idea what Quinn could be keeping from her that would make things look bad. Quinn took a deep breath as she prepared to tell her sister everything.
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