A/N: As ever, thanks for reading and a big thank you to the people who are reviewing. I'm still pretty new to PLL so it's nice to have some feedback to know how I'm doing. I've got the next four or five chapters planned out so should hopefully be able to update pretty regularly.

"So you told me you picked the biggest horse you could find, a warm blood or something?" Emily hadn't had a chance to talk to Paige about her dream over breakfast, and they'd never had a minute alone for the rest of the day, so she was finally filling her in on the drive home.
"A hot blood." Paige corrected her. She was wearing a strange smile, something crossed between bemusement and curiosity. "It's funny. I don't remember ever telling you I could ride."
"You can? I didn't know that."

"I'm a mystery." Paige laughed; though in all honesty she felt like an open book whenever Emily was looking at her. "My dad's folks have a ranch down in Texas. I think I was riding before I could walk. I entered a couple of rodeos, got a few ribbons." She shrugged it off, uncharacteristically playing down her achievements; like she though Emily would laugh at her for them.
"That's sweet…does your dad call you his little cow girl?" Emily tried again to guess what Paige's dad's pet name was for her, but the other girl laughed it off.
"Nope, keep guessing Fields." She smirked, enjoying how hard Emily was trying to guess her nickname. She was still trying as they walked through Emily's front door.

"Um, how about baby girl? Sugarplum? Honey pie? Pain in the a-"
"Hi girls." Pam Fields surprised the teens as she emerged from the kitchen to greet them. Emily's cheeks flushed as she realised her mom could easily get the wrong idea about what she'd overheard. "Dinner won't be long."
"Hi Mrs Fields." Paige nodded towards her, biting back a smirk as she watched Emily squirming under her mother's gaze. "Something sure smells good, is that meatloaf?" Paige had inherited her hot temper from her father, but some of his southern charm had also rubbed off on her and she had Pam beaming at her for the compliment.
"Why thank you Paige, and yes it is. I hope you like meatloaf?"
"My favourite."

"My favourite." Emily mimicked as they were on their way up to her room to study while they waited for dinner to be ready. She playfully shoved her with her shoulder.
"It is!" Paige protested, shoving her right back before flopping down on to Emily's bed and making herself comfortable. She lifted her arms up behind her head, which in turn made her borrowed polo shirt rise up, revealing the smooth creamy skin of her toned stomach. Emily felt her own stomach doing somersaults at the sight of the other girl lying on her bed. Ignoring the butterflies in her stomach, she pushed Paige's legs aside so that she could sit down on her bed too. She started pulling her study books out of her bag as the other girl rolled over on to her side to face her, propping herself up on her elbow. Her gaze settled on something beside Emily's bed and as she followed her gaze Emily felt her chest tightening. A framed picture of her and Maya was still sitting on her bedside table. It hadn't really been a conscious decision on her part to keep it there; she just hadn't considered moving it.

Paige cleared her throat as she picked up one of Emily's text books in an attempt to end the awkward silence that had settled over them. "Let's blow off studying and watch a movie or something?" Emily was grateful that she hadn't drawn attention to the picture on her bedside table. It was like Paige knew exactly when Emily needed to talk to, as well as when she didn't. Rolling her eyes, she took her book back from her.
"How about we study until dinner and afterwards you can pick a movie for us to watch? You do have that trig test tomorrow."
"Don't remind me!" Paige groaned, warily eyeing her Trigonometry book. "I suck at Trig."
"Know what helps with that? Studying?"
"You're so funny Fields."

They sat studying in Emily's room until Pam called them down for dinner. Mr Fields was still out of town, so it was just the three of them at the dinner table. Pam made the usual parent small talk, asking them both about how school went and enquiring about their homework. Paige won the older woman over by offering to help clear the table before dessert, which just led to more teasing from Emily when they went back upstairs to watch a movie. "Doing the dishes? My mom really is going to try and adopt you." Emily laughed as she climbed on to her bed, letting the other girl look through her DVD collection to decide what they were going to watch.
"Do you have anything that doesn't involve blood, gore and violence?" She quizzed, finding a lack of variety to Emily's movies.

"Sorry McCullers, I think I threw out my Disney movies a few years back."
"Really? I've still got all mine." Paige grinned over her shoulder and Emily felt the corners of her mouth curling up in to an amused smile at the thought of Paige sitting down to watch Snow White or Pocahontas. "Yeah, I can't watch any of these and then go home to an empty house." Paige shook her head absently as she read the back cover of Switchblade Romance.
"Why don't you to stay over?" Emily suggested, catching Paige off guard.
"Oh, I wasn't suggesting…I mean…you don't have to…" She flushed, a little uncomfortable at the thought of spending the night in Emily's room.

"It's not like my mom will mind, she loves you remember?" Emily teased as she pushed herself up from her bed and grabbed her car keys. "We'll go pick up your stuff and you can impress me with your DVD collection."
"Prepare to be wowed." Paige seemed to relax a little as they headed downstairs. After letting Pam know where they were going they drove over to the other girl's house so they could pick up an overnight bag for her. Paige left Emily downstairs in the living room while she went up to her room. She found herself fussing over which pyjamas to take and she was cursing herself when she still hadn't chosen anything after a whole five minutes of rooting through her dresser.
"Hurry up McCullers, we don't have all night!" Emily called up to her, hastening her decision. She pulled out a pair of shorts and one of her old field hockey vests, deciding to stick to something safe rather than revealing. She picked up a change of clothes for the morning and on the way out of her room she grabbed her portable hard-drive off her desk, it had most of her movies on and she was sure she'd be able to find something on it that Emily would want to watch.
"Ready." She called out as she reached the bottom of the stairs; just as the house phone started ringing. She answered it with her free hand, expecting it to be her parents checking up on her.

Sure enough, when she picked it up it was her dad. "Hey Dad, yeah I'm home. I'm actually just heading out though…I'm staying at Emily's tonight." Emily stood by the door waiting for her to finish. She wasn't sure what Nick McCullers thought of his daughter spending time with her. He'd had a pretty strong opinion regarding Emily's sexuality. She wondered what he would say if he knew they had history. "Yes, Emily Fields. Her mom says it's fine. How's Grandma doing? Oh, ok. Well give her my love… and I guess I'll see you guys Friday."
"Your parents aren't coming back until Friday?" She quizzed. She hadn't meant to eavesdrop on the conversation, but it was pretty hard when she was standing right in front of her.

"Uh, yeah. My Gran's still not doing too good." Paige shrugged like it was no big deal. Emily couldn't imagine her parents leaving her alone in the house for a week. "Better not tell your mom, she'll be adopting me for sure." She joked, earning a smile from the other girl.
"She'd probably move you in to my room."
"God, you'd be sick of me in a week!" She laughed as she locked the front door and followed Emily to her car. Emily surprised them both as she caught hold of Paige's hand, stopping her in her tracks.
"No I wouldn't." She let go of her hand as she brushed her hair back behind her ear. Things had suddenly grown pretty tense between them again. "I mean…I like spending time with you. I know I haven't exactly been the life of the party these last few weeks, but I'm doing better now…and that's mostly thanks to you."

"I didn't do anything." Paige insisted bashfully. "It's all you…You're stronger than anyone I know Emily."
"I'm not the weakest link anymore." Emily agreed, though the other girl had no idea what she was talking about. Catching her puzzled expression she shook her head. "When A...I mean, when Mona was targeting us she went after me the most, because she thought I was the weakest."
"She was wrong. You're not weak Em."

"Are you warm enough?" Paige asked as she pulled her spare cloak tighter around herself. She'd let Emily have the warmer one. "I can't risk building a fire and drawing attention to us." The caves were pretty close to one of the dirt roads that cut through the woods and she didn't want to alert bandits or A's troops to their whereabouts.
"I'm fine." Emily insisted. She'd been nice and warm, wrapped up under her comforter watching a movie with Paige. At some point she must have fallen asleep, because she was suddenly sitting in a dank cave, huddled under a thick cloak.

"We'll stay here until first light; hopefully the rain should have stopped by then."
"And then we'll go find Spencer?"
"We'll try." Paige wasn't all that optimistic about finding the elusive fire goddess. "Nobody's seen her in a really long time, and from all accounts...she's a little bit crazy. There's no guarantee she can help us."
"But we have to try." Emily's earlier conversation with the real Paige had sparked a fire inside of her. She was ready to take on A, to finally face up to the monster that had been terrorising her for almost two years. "I'm done running from A. I'm doing being scared."

"You know, a great man once said that courage isn't the absence of fear, it's the conquest of it." Paige shifted subtly closer towards the other girl. She could see that despite what she said the cold was getting to her. Emily was shaking under the cloak as she shuffled closer to Paige to keep warm.
"Who said that?"
"Olwyn, the first king of the Rose Woods. He led the first humans here two hundred years ago. He was a great warrior and a fair and just leader. The kingdom flourished under his rule; but one night he stumbled across the Fairy Hunt. It was being led by Arcasia, a beautiful young fairy princess with eyes the colour of honey and skin as soft as silk. He fell madly in love with her and he went back with the hunt to the fairy homeland, deep in the heart of the woods-"
"There are fairies in the Rose woods?" Emily frowned sceptically.

"You're a goddess Emily. Fairies aren't that hard to believe in…besides, you're in this story too, so be quiet and let me finish." Paige chastised. Emily did as she was told, eager to hear the rest of the story. "As I was saying, Olwyn went with Arcasia. It was only one night, but time moved differently in the fairy world. He was missing for five years. When he returned to his palace, he found that one of his knights, Finlay, had taken over his kingdom. Now Finlay wasn't a fair man, he was a cruel tyrant who had led the people of the kingdom in to poverty and despair." Emily listened intently as Paige told her story, her eyes closing over as she listened to her voice.

"Olwyn tried to take back the throne, but Finlay refused to give it back. The kingdom was torn in two and it was on the verge of civil war. The day of the great battle, the two forces met by the lake at the heart of the woods. Now the lake was home to the goddess of the water; the most beautiful and benevolent of all the goddesses of the forest." Emily shot her a look and she watched as the young warrior blushed. "What? I'm telling the story exactly how my mom used to tell it! Anyway, usually the goddesses paid no attention to human matters, but the water goddess couldn't stand by and watch men kill each other. So she rose up from the lake and made the water rise high above the trees, creating an impenetrable wall and separating the two sides. She called upon her sisters and the four goddesses gave the two kings an ultimatum. They could either settle their differences and chose who would be king, or the goddesses would banish mankind from the woods forever. Olwyn was the first to speak up, fearing that his people would have to leave the land they worked so hard to make prosperous. He dropped to one knee and pledged his allegiance to Finlay."

"So the bad king won? What kind of story is that?" Emily frowned, unhappy with the outcome. Paige chuckled at her companion as she shook her head.
"No. He didn't win. Olwyn was selfless. He put the needs of his people before his own, like a good king should. So the goddesses banished Finlay and they announced Olwyn as king of the Rose Woods. They promised that as long as his family were as noble and selfless as he was, they would protect his lineage and ensure that his bloodline kept the throne."
"And did they?" Emily knew she was supposed to be the water goddess. She was supposed to know more than Paige, but she wasn't a two hundred year old goddess that lived in a lake. She was a teenager from Pennsylvania with a vivid imagination that had crafted an elaborate dream to deal with her psychosis.

Paige's expression hardened again as she lost her smile, as though thinking about the tale had opened up old wounds. "They did. Olwyn had a son to Arcasia. She left the fairy world for a mortal life with him and his son grew up succeed him as king. His family held the crown for two hundred years. They ruled the land fairly and they led the people to prosperity…until the goddesses turned their back on us, and A killed ended the royal bloodline." Emily didn't miss the accusation in her tone. She hated the way Paige was looking at her like everything that was wrong in the world was Emily's fault.

"I know you're angry and you're hurt because of what happened to your dad, but I don't remember-"
"Quiet." Paige snapped, her frown deepening in to a scowl. Emily was momentarily stunned by the ferocity in her voice.
"Paige-" The other girl clamped a hand over her mouth as the other went to the sword at her side. Emily's eyed widened in fear, unsure what she intended to do. Paige dropped her voice down low as she whispered in her ear. "Someone's coming."

Paige woke with a start as she heard a scream ringing in her ears. It took her a second to figure out where she was as her eyes focused on a room that definitely wasn't hers. She was lying in a bed, with something warm and soft pressed up against her side. Emily.

Emily was the warmth beside her and she was also the source of the screaming. "Em, what's wrong?" Paige's voice was thick with sleep and her eyes were still struggling to focus in the dark. Her hand found the small of Emily's back and the other girl flinched from the touch. Paige tried not to take it personally as she waited for Emily to calm down. "Em it's ok. It's ok." She soothed and began rubbing her hand in small circles against her back.
"No it's not…" Emily shook her head, unable to shake the images she had in her mind. "They stabbed you…they…the blood…" Emily yanked back the covers as though expecting to find herself sitting in a pool of the other girl's blood. She was frantic and still half asleep, trapped between the waking world and the one in her mind. Paige grabbed hold of her arms, stopping her from thrashing about.
"Whoa, Emily, I'm fine. Ok? Look at me Em! I'm fine!" Paige made her hold still and look at her. "I'm fine." She repeated in a softer voice as Emily's eyes seemed to finally focus on her.

She reached out for Paige's vest without warning, pulling it up a little to check on the skin just above her hip, where she had obviously expected to find a gaping wound. Her fingers grazed lightly over the skin and the other girl struggled not to react to her touch. "It was so real." Emily sighed, her head finding Paige's shoulder as her arms wrapped around her neck. Her body was warm with sleep and Paige was suddenly wide awake with the other girl pressed against her.
"It was just a dream." She croaked out, hating how her own voice betrayed her. "It wasn't real. I'm fine." She subtly tried to shift so that they were lying back down, but Emily sat bolt upright again.

"I can't go back to sleep!" She insisted. It was barely 4am, but she couldn't face going back to sleep. If she slipped back in to her dream, back to Paige lying crumpled at her feet and bleeding from the deep wound in her abdomen…she just couldn't go back there. Paige has shushed her when she'd heard a noise outside the caves. She'd reached for her sword and had been ready for anything, but so had the two men that had walked in to the cave. They'd been thieves, just looking for a quick score and insisting that they hand over their valuables. Emily had been ready to give them anything, but Paige had refused to back down and when they'd gone for her sword she'd lost it. Going for the closest one she'd managed to land a blow that had made him drop his sword, but the other one had been quick to react and his own sword and plunged in to Paige's stomach, just above her hip. Her eyes had widened in surprise before her knees had given way and she'd dropped to the cold hard ground of the cave. Emily had reacted on instinct at the sight of the blood, dropping beside her and covering the wound with her hands.

"Come on then." Paige pushed the covers away and climbed out of bed, earning a disbelieving look from the other girl.
"You don't have to get up with me. You can get some more sleep before school, I'll just go downstairs."
"Forget it Fields, if you're up I'm up." She started pulling on her clothes and shot Emily an expectant look as she just sat there in her bed. "Get dressed. We can go swim over at my house, its warm enough outside." She knew Emily well enough to know that the water would calm her more than anything else could. Emily slipped out of bed, but instead of going for her clothes she made her way over to Paige, her hands going to her waist and her head resting against the other girl's chest as she hugged her again.
"Thank you." She muttered right in to Paige's ear, but the other girl could barely hear a thing over the sound of the blood rushing to her head and her heart pounding in her ears. She was trying to do the right thing for her friend, but it was hard to set her own feelings aside.

Her eyes closed over as she felt Emily's fingers brushing softly against her side again, checking that there was definitely no stab wound there. Paige started to wonder just how real Emily's dreams were to her if she felt the need to double check her for injuries. She pulled away first, forcing herself to let go of Emily before she could do something stupid and risk their friendship again. "Ok Superstar, let's go. You need all the practise you can get this year if you want to beat my times." She teased, falling back in to their easy going rapport. The sooner she got out of Emily's bedroom the better; the teenager only had so much self-control and Emily Fields seemed to be able to use up most of it.