AN: Thank you for all your kind words! Keep leaving me reviews. I appreciate everyone's feedback.

White Tigresss, the Spanna vibes are completely platonic lol. I just love writing their dynamic.


"Alison," Jessica said softly to the girl lying on her side, facing the window, "It's time to wake up, sweetheart." Thanks to the Concerta, Alison was functioning just well enough to leave the house, but she was clearly still severely depressed and Jessica felt bad for having to wake her.

"Okay," Alison murmured and stared blankly at the bank sign in the distance. She had already been awake for hours.

"How did you sleep?" Jessica asked, but she could already guess.

"Fine," Alison lied. She had probably gotten about an hour of sleep in total. She knocked out right away following her mother's interrogation, but couldn't shake the feeling of someone watching her. The residual reflex from bed checks jolted her awake every 20 minutes and eventually she just gave up trying to find deep sleep and stayed up the rest of the night.

Jessica sighed. She knew Alison didn't sleep well in her bouts of depression. "Come downstairs to take the Concerta when you're ready."

Alison murmured another "okay" and waited for her mother to close the door before forcing herself out of bed. She opened her dresser and pondered over what she should wear. She thought about wearing her best because this was technically a first day of school, but eventually settled on some jeans and a simple white blouse. This was Day Treatment and honestly, who was she trying to impress?

Alison made her way downstairs and found her mother in the kitchen, pouring a glass of water. She looked around the dimly lit room she had almost forgotten. "Is that right?" she said, nodding to the stove's digital display that said 6:13am.

Jessica turned to look at the stove and nodded, "It's right."

"Why did we have to get up so early? I thought their school starts at 7:30."

"It does, but we're supposed to have a meeting with your doctors at 7. Do you want anything to eat?" Jessica asked.

"I'm not hungry," Alison said quietly, sitting in one of the stools around the kitchen island. Jessica slid her a pill bottle and the glass of water. Alison picked up the orange bottle and turned it to read the label. Concerta. She pushed and twisted the white child-proof cap and shook one of the grey tablets into her hand. "Did you fill the Lexapro prescription too?" She was hoping she wouldn't have to take it tonight. It gave her headaches and she didn't see the point of taking something if all she got was the side effects.

"I threw it out," Jessica said easily. "I don't want you taking it anymore."

"But I can't just stop taking it." She was happy to skip it, but people were generally supposed to be weened on and off psychiatric medication.

"You're on a low dose."

Alison was too tired to think about it anymore so she just popped the Concerta onto her tongue and gulped it down with some water, hoping it would kick in soon so she'd be able to stay awake through the day.

"Here," Jessica slid Alison's phone across the counter. "You're probably really happy to have that back, huh?"

"I guess, yeah," Alison shrugged and flicked the switch on the side to put it on vibrate.

Jessica turned to hide her disappointment and hooked her bag over her shoulder. She thought that would get Alison to smile.

Alison hadn't even realized she didn't have her phone with her, not with her emotions everywhere in 21 West. She was glad that she had it back, it was just hard to get excited about anything. You can always do one day, Alison reiterated Emily's words from the previous night.

###

As they walked past the Emergency Room doors and into the lobby, Alison had to remind herself that she was going to Day Treatment and not the inpatient unit. They signed in at the information/visitor pass desk and waited for the secretary to write up their guest passes. It was a bit of a maze to the back of the hospital where the elevators were, but Alison figured she'd get used to it pretty quickly. She anxiously watched the floor number display as the lift climbed higher and higher. The elevator doors opened and she took a deep breath as she stepped out. Alison looked around the small elevator lobby and realized she didn't recognize anything except the gross light wheat paint on the walls. Floor 21 was stenciled on the walls between each of the 5 elevators, right below the floor number was a plastic stand that framed the hospital rights. Jessica led Alison out of the elevator lobby and through the entryway that read Child & Adolescent Day Treatment.

Alison did a quick sweep of the unit. She looked to the right, down the long hallway and saw 21 West stenciled over double doors. They had left this way last night, but Alison was so out of it that she couldn't recognize anything now. She looked down to the other end of the hall and saw that another set of double doors were propped open with 21 East over the frame. She could see a few of the classrooms that ran perpendicular to the long hallway. Just before the classrooms, a portion of the wall was windowed, revealing a huge room with a glazed roof that must have been 3-4 stories high.

"Sweetheart," Jessica called from the end of the hall, "Come on."

Alison walked down the hall toward her mother who was standing right in front of the 21 West entrance. She peered through small windows on the doors, but all she could see was the foosball table. Emily was probably about to have breakfast with Hanna and Spencer just on the other side.

"You're thinking about her, aren't you?" Jessica said knowingly.

"Hmm?" Alison turned to her mother.

"You're smiling."

"Is this it?" Alison asked, changing the subject and pointing to the door just to the right of the inpatient unit.

Jessica nodded and opened the door, letting Alison walk through first.

Alison hesitantly entered the room and it took her a moment to remember that they were early and no kids were here yet.

"Hi," a woman with short blonde hair, who looked like she was in her early 30s, approached her with an outstretched hand, "You must be Alison."

Alison nodded and gave a firm handshake. Something about this woman irked her already and she wouldn't allow herself to seem weak around her.

"I'm Dr. Kavanaugh, I'll be your therapist."

Fuck me, of course you are. Shit. Alison cursed herself, but didn't let her firm handshake or eye contact waver.

A heavier, tan Filipino man, who looked to be around the same age as Dr. Kavanaugh, came out from the tiny office in the corner of the room, "And I'm Dr. Alcerra. I'll be your psychiatrist."

Alison looked at the hospital I.D. clipped to his shirt and read Director, Child and Adolescent Day Treatment. She didn't completely trust this guy either, but his presence commanded more respect and he seemed a little more genuine than the therapist.

"Please, sit," Dr. Alcerra said as he led them over to an area with 3 tables pushed together to form 1 long one for the patients. "So, how are you?"

The room remained silent and she realized that the doctors wouldn't keep going until they got some kind of answer. "I'm in here," Alison deadpanned.

"Fair enough," Dr. Alcerra ceded, knowing that was probably the most he was going to get out of the girl right now. He glanced down at Alison's file. "Did you eat anything?"

Alison shook her head, "I wasn't hungry."

"You need to make sure you eat before you take the meds. You're probably not hungry during the day because of the Concerta, but you need to eat in the morning so you have something in your stomach, even if it's just a granola bar or an apple."

Alison agreed even though she probably wouldn't listen. She probably should, but she was stubborn and she was going to eat when she felt like eating.

"Your mom told me that Lexapro hasn't worked for you?" Dr. Alcerra asked, but didn't look up from the file for confirmation. "I'm going to write a prescription for Remeron. It's another anti-depressant. This one will work better with the stimulant and it'll also help you sleep," he explained as he signed the prescription. "It's sometimes prescribed as just a sleep aid, so only take it before bed like the Lexapro," he finished and handed the script to Jessica. "Let me give you a quick orientation and then I'll walk you over to the school so you can get your schedule."

Alison got up from the table and followed Dr. Alcerra to a small round table by the door with a clipboard, a pile of papers and a few pens and pencils scattered on it.

"Every morning when you come in, you have to come to this room and sign in," he glanced down at the visitor sticker on her shirt, "We'll get you your I.D. soon so you won't have to keep getting a visitor's pass downstairs." The psychiatrist pointed to the pile of papers next to the clipboard, "These are the point sheets. Write your name and doctor at the top and write the class and teacher or staff member's name on these lines. At the end of a class or group, you get them to sign it and they'll give you up to four points for that period depending on your behavior. When you save up points, you can get prizes from the store over there," he said, gesturing to a plexiglass-protected shelf filled with a bunch of random toys and junk that Alison didn't really want. "We keep track of everyone's points on that white board."

Alison just nodded again, trying to remember all of the information she had been given. Dr. Alcerra handed her a point sheet which he had already filled out the top of and started to lead her down the hall to the school. When they got to the elevator lobby in the middle of the long hallway, Alison turned to her mother and hugged her goodbye.

"I'm going to walk to work. I'll leave the car here for you, okay?"

"Thank you, Mom," Alison said. It was lightly snowing outside, but her mom had never minded the cold. Jessica always got so excited when it snowed and would sit drinking coffee in the morning by the window as if she were waiting for a snow day to be announced with the TV on in the background. She was probably disappointed with this year's unusually warm winter. Alison hadn't even taken a jacket this morning.

Dr. Alcerra walked her down the rest of the hall and into the school's main office. "Here you go," he said, handing Alison her schedule. "Your first period says Gym. That just means you're supposed to be in the atrium. It's that really big room with the windows that we passed. Also, you might hear the other kids call Day Treatment Bellevue. That's the name of this psych floor, but they don't really call it that in 21 West. Just our unit. Lunch is back in the day room."

Alison nodded in understanding and walked out of the office and into the massive atrium. She looked up at the glazed windows on the ceiling, still dark as it was early in the morning and the middle of winter. The walls were finished in glazed brick and the only light in the room came from the still warming industrial halogen lights that were mounted 30-something feet up the wall. The dim lights flickered off the surface of the green, solid plastic picnic tables that were pushed so close up against the wall, you had to slide in on one side. She was reminded of her solitude with each and every step she took on the white linoleum tiles that echoed through the deserted room.

Alison slid herself onto the bench between the wall and table. She wanted to stay out of everyone's way and observe how everything worked on her first day. It didn't matter where you were. You had to learn the system to survive and when Alison was at the top of her game, she learned to play and manipulate it. But for now, she would just try not to let the day break her.

She was far enough down the row of tables, past the windowed portion of the wall, that she could lean her head back uncomfortably on the finished brick and close her eyes for a while. Alison was letting her eyes rest, but her mind and physical awareness never stopped working. She didn't like being unconscious when she wasn't in what felt like a safe environment and she had trained herself to almost actively listen even when she was asleep. It's a gift now, but it won't be when I try to sleep tonight.

Alison's eyes shot open the second she heard faint footsteps approaching the atrium. She kept her back pressed firmly against the brick and nervously clenched her fists in her lap. A fair skinned girl with straight, raven colored hair and a much taller, thicker girl with light brown puffy curls tied back walked along side her. The taller girl slid in next to Alison while the raven haired girl sat across from her. The shorter girl had a smile on her face and Alison figured that them cornering her was only unintentionally intimidating. They were here to greet her.

"Hi," the girl with the jarringly dark hair greeted, briefly lifting her hand from the table in a wave, "I'm Christina, that's Lexi," she said, pointing to the taller girl.

"Alison. How old are you two?"

"15," Christina answered, a hint of an accent in her pronunciation. She probably came from a bilingual household.

"16," Lexi said.

The blonde nodded and let the two go into their gossip. The girls talked freely around her like they had nothing to hide, despite their conversation being what she considered to be very personal. She was taken back by the way they talked about their friends' getting jumped and a little saddened by the responsibilities they had at home. When she heard Christina say, "I thought I was pregnant last week," Alison knew her suspicions were right. The air of older confidence and maturity around these two girls was forged. They had been forced to grow up too fast.

She observed the mannerisms of the other kids who had started to come in and she could tell that one of them was somewhere on the autism spectrum and the others probably mixed and matched different developmental and behavioral disorders. Thank you, Spencer knowledge. These were the problem students who had been labeled the bad kids. While she had empathy for them, Alison still didn't want to be stuck in a school with them. She had already heard Lexi and Christina talk about their friends' affiliation with gangs and it made her nervous.

Judgmental thoughts about their ignorance loomed in her mind, but that person who wanted to harshly belittle them wasn't who she wanted to be anymore. These kids were fighting a war too. Watch yourself. She never wanted Emily to see that person. These kids may have missed a lot of school, but so did you, Alison told herself. You're one of them. You were labeled a bad kid. They got here a different way, but you ended up in the same place, didn't you?

A middle aged, ghost-white haired man was swarmed by the patients when he walked into the atrium. He herded them all over to the table nearest to the door and called off the names as he finished signing each point sheet in the stack he had attained. Alison waited for the line to disappear and silently handed him the paper.

"Alison," he read from her point sheet, "I'm Mr. Napoli. I help out in the school."

She was able to catch the word supervisor on his I.D.. He gave off a friendly vibe, but his role in the school was obviously a lot bigger than "helping out" and she didn't trust anyone who tried to hide their power.

Alison politely thanked Mr. Napoli for signing her point sheet and pulled out her schedule to find that her next class was US History. She walked into the classroom with the globe sticker on the door and scanned the room for an empty seat. She started toward a seat on the mid-left.

"I'll take that," the teacher said, reaching his hand out, "…the point sheet."

Alison handed it over to the friendly, bald, middle-aged man.

"I like to collect them at the beginning of class so that I can just quickly sign them at the end and you guys don't have to have it taking up space on these tiny desks."

Alison nodded and took a seat in the second desk from the front on the left. She shifted uncomfortably in the hard seat and realized that this was the first time she had been in a classroom setting in over three months. These were the same solid plastic and metal tablet arm desks that they had in Dalton. These classrooms were much smaller than Dalton's, smaller than the inpatient rooms. Five desks were arranged into two columns and each one was pushed up against the opposing wall. The side Alison chose was a little inconvenient because every single desk was for the right handed, which meant the opening for the seat was on the side that was pushed up against the book cases. Alison read the cover of the same textbook that rested on every desk. World History? "Mr.…?"

"Finnerty," the teacher finished for her.

"I thought this was U.S. History."

"It's supposed to be, but we never got those textbooks for some reason. We make do with what we have," he shrugged and sighed.

This place is so underfunded and disorganized. How do kids ever go back to regular school if they're in here for God knows how long, only studying what ever part of what ever textbook this place has at the time? How am I gonna go back?

"Alison?" Mr. Finnerty called.

Alison snapped out of her thoughts and looked up.

"You can get started on those questions for the chapter we're on. It's that plastic sheet sticking out of the book."

She opened the book to questions Mr. Finnerty had printed for the students. He had put them in plastic binder sheets so they didn't get ruined by rough handling and he even slipped in colored overlays to help the kids who had dyslexia. This guy really did all he could for the students.

She gave Mr. Finnerty a once-over and noticed that he wasn't sitting behind a large teacher desk. It was tucked away in the corner and he was sitting in one of the smaller tablet arm desks like other kids. He didn't even have enough room for everything on the small surface, so he had to use a flimsy music stand to hold the point sheets and spare writing utensils. Alison wanted to ask why he chose this set up, but other kids started to come in so she kept quiet and pushed through the tedious task of reading the questions and writing down the answers she found in the textbook.

As Alison continued to push through the morning, she could feel her will wearing thin, fast. It was nearing the end of math and she was bored out of her mind. Lexi and Christina were in it with her and now Alison could understand how substantially far behind in school they were. The girls were only one and two years younger than her, so they should have been doing Geometry, Algebra 2 or Trigonometry, but they were struggling with Pre-Algebra.

Lexi glanced over at Alison's paper and scoffed.

Alison felt the tall girl's eyes on her and stiffened.

She didn't know how to talk the kids here. She told herself to find common ground, but she didn't have a fucking clue of where to start. She had finally gotten used to talking to people again in 21 West and now it felt like she didn't have anyone to talk to. The red-headed math teacher, Mr. Dotter, and Benny, the aid who helped with the simple math, were both really nice and friendly, but right now, talking with the other kids in the room felt like talking out of turn and Alison couldn't have felt more lonely.

"You don't belong here," Lexi said, shaking her head slowly.

Alison carefully lifted her eyes to the girl looking at her paper and breathed an inward sigh of relief when she saw that the towering girl was smiling.

"You're too smart for this school," Lexi remarked as she stared in amazement that Alison had easily work through the middle school math.

Alison shrugged in response. She didn't say anything because she felt bad for these two girls. She had heard them fantasizing about what college would be like. If they graduated from high school, how would they make it through the first semester of college rigor courses? She had struggled in school too and who was to say that the same thing wouldn't happen to her?

Alison looked up from her desk and jumped a little when she realized she wasn't in math with Mr. Dotter anymore. Her body had been on auto pilot for the last hour and she didn't remember walking in. At least she had chosen the desk that was half behind the closet. She glanced up at the clock on the wall. This class was almost over and she hadn't finished answering the questions from this science textbook. She saw that the other kids were already done and waiting for class to end. I'm not too smart for this school.

###

"Bye, Em!" Hanna squeezed Emily in a tight hug. Spencer was in the hug too, but she wasn't squeezing nearly as hard.

"Okay, Han," Emily feigned pain. Hanna was stronger than she looked. "I'll see you guys soon?"

"Yeah," Spencer nodded. "We only have a couple more days. Say 'Hi' to Ali for us."

"And eat a waffle for me," Hanna added.

"You already told Ali to do that," Spencer said.

Emily smiled and hooked her bag onto her shoulder, "Ali doesn't really like to eat breakfast anyway. I'll have a protein shake for you though."

Hanna scrunched up her nose, "Ew, forget it then."

Emily chuckled and waved back at her friends, "Bye, guys."

Nurse Peggy buzzed Emily and her mom out of the unit and they walked down the hall to the elevator lobby.

"So, what do you want to do for the rest of the day?" Pam asked, keeping her eyes on the number display that indicated which floor the elevator was on.

"What?"

"You don't start Day Treatment until tomorrow, so what do you want to do for the rest of the day?"

Emily paused to think, "I'm not sure. I kind of just wanna relax at home, maybe see Ali later," she said, stepping up to the opening elevator doors.

Pam pressed the button to the first floor, "Does she even live near us?"

"Close enough for me to ride my bike there. Why'd you ask that?"

"Well first of all, a short bike ride for you is not a short bike ride for a normal person," Pam pointed out, "And I just asked because a lot of the kids in Day Treatment are transferred in from Philly and other cities because their schools don't know what to do with them."

"Ali lives close by. When she's discharged, she'll go to school with me."

Pam smiled at her daughter having another friend when she went back. After Nate, Emily's panic attacks put her on edge and she started to lash out at people which caused her to lose a lot of her friends. Pam thought Emily was better off without those friends if they didn't care enough about her to see that she was only snapping at them out of pain. Rosewood High was pretty much the only public school in the small town and when the hospital discharged kids, Emily's school was often where a lot of them were sent. The brunette had more people to relate to at Rosewood High than she thought. Granted, kids probably didn't go around advertising their mental illnesses, but Pam hoped that one day Emily would see that there were allies all around her.

When they pulled up to the house, Emily saw her dad standing up on their deck. Before she could notice what he was standing next to, or remember to take her bag in, she ran into the house and up the stairs to tackle-hug him.

Wayne chuckled and firmly embraced his daughter, "I missed you too, Emmy."

Emily glanced around and saw Snowy the Snowman propped up against the deck railing. "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are the Christmas decorations out?"

"Your mother told me you weren't feeling up to it when it was actually Christmas so I thought we could do it together now." Wayne didn't care if they were more than half way through January. His Emmy got to decorate the house every year and this year was not going to be any different.

"Really?"

"Of course," Wayne bellowed and picked up two large, plastic penguins, "Now who gets to put up Wingy and who gets to put up Pingy?"

###

It was finally lunchtime, but Alison wasn't excited at all. She was nervous to talk to these kids and sitting in the day room, where she was expected to do exactly that, was not something she was looking forward to. Having to eat surrounded by nurses and psychologists was just the frosting on the Bellevue shit cake.

She opened the door to the day room and her eyes fell to the only available seat. Fuck my life. She pushed forward and begrudgingly sat in the seat next to Dr. Kavanaugh. She didn't know why she didn't like this woman. She hadn't even really talked to her yet.

"You don't want to get any food?" the therapist asked.

"I'm not hungry," Alison said quietly. She waited for the lecture on the importance of eating, but it didn't come and she internally thanked them for letting her be today.

"Hi, Ms. Robbie," Lexi said, sitting next to one of the nurses.

"Hey, sweetie," Ms. Robbie greeted and glanced down to the girl's hands. "When are you going to stop biting your nails? How else are you ever gon' get a man to put a ring on that pretty finger?"

Lexi's smile instantly faded and she shrugged before digging into her food.

The blonde grimaced to herself at the nurse's unintentional dig. Ms. Robbie was a sweet older black woman with a thick southern accent and Alison knew she didn't mean it in a bad way, but whether the nurse knew the weight of her words, she still shouldn't have said it. It implied that this 16 year old girl should be striving for marriage and assumed that Lexi was heterosexual.

Alison wanted to say something, but with her emotions all over the place today, she would inevitably get herself into trouble and she wanted to make sure she got out of here at the end of the summer. As she silently doodled on the back of her point sheet, she realized that she hadn't really spoken to anyone all day, not including the few words with Lexi, Christina and the teachers. For the first time ever, she found herself wishing she was in school. Being in classes saved her from talking to the other kids and being anywhere near the Bellevue staff.

When Dr. Alcerra said that it was time to go back to class, Alison's body relaxed. She stopped drawing on her point sheet to get it signed and noticed a deep, white divot on the side of her index finger. She had been holding onto her pencil with a death grip. This place was making her crack.

###

"How long are you here for?" Ms. Lipton asked.

"Through summer school," Alison sighed, dejectedly. She was already fed up with how this place treated kids. The teachers were nice, but the Bellevue staff was worse than the inpatient staff at keeping kids calm. At least once every period, a kid would get dragged through the school hallway in tears, frantically kicking and screaming. They would be taken behind the white door, past the last class room and all of the sudden the screaming would stop. They sedate kids when they don't listen. Alison shuddered at the disgusting practice. She doubted the kids were doing anything that required sedation because she never heard screaming until the inevitable "Let go of me!" rang out.

The curly haired art teacher gave her a sympathetic look and put more paper on the table for Alison to draw on. This was the last period of the day and the blonde had come in from music looking completely hollow and defeated. She didn't want to push too hard so she had just been letting Alison do what she wanted.

The art teacher read the time on her watch, "It's time to go. Do you want me to save any of this?" referring to the drawings Alison had done.

"No,"Alison shook her head.

"I'll give them your point sheet. I'm guessing you don't want to go back in there."

"Have a good evening," the blonde said politely and exited of the classroom. Alison had only gotten worse during the last half of the school day. She was frustrated with herself for not being able to finish any of the work in these ridiculously trivial classes. She thought music would be the easiest class, but Mr. Foster decided to take after the other classes and have her answer questions from a passage he found online about old jazz musicians. The only reason she was able to finish the math questions was because the work was for 6th graders and it didn't require reading.

She fought the exhaustion and wearily turned the corner to the long hallway. She looked up to find Emily in her blue Sharks varsity jacket at the other end of the corridor, sitting in one of the chairs in front of the day room. The swimmer caught sight of Alison and stood up.

Emily beamed at the nearing blonde walking towards her, "How was it?" she called through the hallway.

Alison thought about how to answer and tried to force a smile to keep Emily's on her face, but it fell flat under the miserable despair that made her heart ache in her chest.

Emily's smile vanished at the sight of heavy tears gathering in the nearing blonde's eyes and she moved to meet the distraught girl halfway at the entrance to the elevator lobby.

Alison stepped into Emily and slipped her arms through the opening of the varsity jacket and around the swimmer's waist.

Emily cupped the blonde's cheeks, "Hey," she said sweetly, using her thumbs to gently wipe the tears Alison was trying to blink away.

Alison swallowed thickly, "I hate it," she forced out in a strained voice.

"It'll get better." I hope. If she had seen Broken Alison that first morning when they met, then this was Shattered Alison. This Alison looked like she had lost all hope. This Alison didn't even look like she had the energy to self harm if she wanted to. This Alison looked like she had just given up. But Emily wasn't going to let her. "It was just the first day," she pulled the girl from her thoughts, "Can you do another?"

Alison nodded slowly.

"Good," Emily whispered, giving her a small smile. "Come on." She clasped their hands together and led Alison into the elevator and out of the hospital.

It had gotten much colder since Alison had left the house this morning and she was now shivering in her thin blouse. "My car is in the parking lot in the back."

The swimmer noticed Alison shivering and let go of the blonde's hand to take her jacket off.

"What are you doing?"

"Put it on," Emily said, holding the letterman open.

"I'm fine."

"You're cold, I have a sweater under this, and I said you could wear it whenever you wanted."

"Whenever I wanted to wear it or whenever you wanted me to wear it?"

"Both?"

A smile tugged at Alison's lips as she gave in and turned around, slipping her arms through the sleeves. "You do realize how cliché this is, right?"

Emily brushed off the shoulders of the jacket and clasped their hands again, "It's your fault for walking right into it by only wearing a blouse in the middle of January." She leaned forward to peck the blonde's lips and pulled away to see Alison smiling for the first time that day.

They approached the car and Emily held her hand out, "Give me your keys."

"Why?"

"I'm driving. You look like you're about to pass out."

Alison rolled her eyes, but she knew Emily was right. Taking the Concerta nearly 3 hours earlier than she was used to meant it was wearing off 3 hours earlier and the raw fatigue was beginning to show itself.

She stayed awake in the car, telling Emily about the teachers she had met that day and about the kids and all the messed up ways they were mistreated.

"They give kids the booty juice when they're not violent?" Emily said, in shock.

"If that's what you call sedation, then yes."

"It is," Emily nodded as she parked Alison's car.

"Em, this isn't my house."

"I know," she said, getting out of the car and walking around to Alison's side and opening the door, "It's mine. You're having dinner with us."

Alison got out and caught a glimpse of the Rosewood Sharks bumper sticker on the Corolla in front of them. "Is that your car?" she asked, taking Emily's hand.

"Yeah."

"Wait, did you walk back to the hospital?"

"Yep."

Alison was impressed. She thought it seemed far, but then again, she wasn't an athlete. "How long do you usually keep your decorations up?"

"Actually I just put them up with my dad a couple hours ago." Alison gave her a strange look, "My dad found out I was too depressed this year-well, technically last year, so we did it together today."

"That's sweet," Alison loved how great Emily's relationship was with her father. She sent a quick text to her mom telling her she would be late and looked back at the swimmer.

"I usually take 'em down by the end of the month. This girl who used to be on the swim team with me used to leave hers up until like June." Dumb ass Harvey. If you're already halfway back to Christmas, you might as well just leave everything up.

Wayne heard the door open, "Pam?" he called out.

"It's me, Dad," Emily called back, "Ali's with me."

Wayne immediately stopped chopping cucumbers and hid the large knife under the cutting board when he heard Emily's voice. He quickly rinsed his hands in the sink and grabbed a dish towel to dry off, "It's nice to finally meet you, Al."

Alison smiled at Wayne's nickname for her. She could remember Kenneth calling her that a couple times when she was in preschool, but it was more of him trailing off and not caring enough to say her whole name. Coming from Wayne, it sounded like actual fatherly endearment. "Likewise, Colonel," she replied, giving the man a firm handshake. He had told her to call him Wayne on the phone, but it felt weird calling either of Emily's parents by their first names so she just stuck to Colonel and avoided calling Pam anything if she could.

Emily started to pull Alison up the stairs, "We'll be in my room."

Wayne went back into the kitchen to finish chopping vegetables for his Israeli salad, "Alright. Your mother got called into the station. She'll be back in a couple hours to help me with dinner."

"Okay," Emily called down, shutting her door. She took off her sweater and padded over to the blonde staring out the window with her head leaning on the molding and a knee propped up on the window seat. She came up behind Alison and removed the jacket from the blonde, gently sliding the girl's arms out of the sleeves and placing it on one of the hooks mounted to the closet door.

"Em," Alison turned to Emily and brought her arms around the brunette's neck, lightly brushing the mermaid tattoo with the tips of her fingers, "What is this?"

Emily's hands instinctively moved to the blonde's hips, "My tattoo?"

"No, this," Alison ducked her head, nodding to the non-existent space between their bodies, "Us."

"I didn't think you wanted to label this," Emily ran her fingers under the back of Alison's blouse, skimming along the smooth, creamy skin.

"I'm not sure if I do," Alison said honestly, fear lurking behind her words.

"What are you so afraid will happen if we do?" she asked earnestly.

Alison didn't answer and just looked Emily directly in the eyes. I have something real to lose if we label it. She was far from perfect and she was bound to screw up at some point. One day Emily would realize that she was just a burden and she couldn't watch the brunette walk away from her. She just couldn't.

Emily peered into those blue orbs she could read so well, "You're not gonna lose me."

Alison's lip quivered as she struggled to resist the tears that threatened to escape out of love for the only person who had ever understood her.

"I've already seen the worst of you, Ali. I still haven't seen the best of you and I need to stick around to choose both."

Alison leaned in for a sweet kiss. "Does this make me your girlfriend?" she whispered, the imminent loss of consciousness evident in her sleepy voice.

"Well, I don't know. This girlfriend looks like she's about to fall asleep on me," Emily teased lightly.

Alison let out a breathy chuckle and rested their heads together.

"Why don't you lie down for a while?"

Alison wanted to say no because Emily didn't invite her here so she could sleep, but couldn't fight her body any longer and found herself nodding.

Emily guided a drooping Alison over to the bed and the blonde promptly collapsed onto the mattress when she pulled the covers back. It was a little chilly in the house so Emily pulled out an extra comforter from her closet and draped it over Alison. She walked around to the other side of the bed and lounged on top of the covers. When Alison felt the bed dip, she subconsciously turned and nuzzled her head into Emily's side, hugging the swimmer's toned abdomen.

Emily wrapped a secure arm around Alison's back and lay there in comfortable silence as the blonde fell asleep. She thought about how content she was just doing this. When she dated Maya and Paige, it always felt like they had to be doing something. They went to the movies, they went skating, they went to dinner and they even sang in a sketchy bar once. It was easy to find someone to do something with, but it was much harder to find someone to do nothing with. She enjoyed doing all those things with Maya and Paige, but she would choose doing nothing every time if it meant she got to spend time with Alison.