Aha, chapter ten is finally finished, though it didn't take as long as I assumed it would, though it wasn't exactly a quick update.

Hope you guys don't find it too confusing.

Aria sat inside the house that she used to share with the one person that meant the most to her in the world. The rain was pounding against the windows, a hard, pulsing beat, serving as a reminder of one time where the two of them had been so freaked by a storm that they hid under the covers all day, devising plans for the future, creating a utopia of fiction for the both to fantasize about in years to come. And, unbeknownst to them at the time, making a memory that they'd treasure for years, maybe even forever.

She used to love her, with every inch of her soul. But now, she just felt lonely...Empty; dead inside.

Silent tears rolled down her cheeks, kind of like the rain rolling down her windowpane- thick, heavy and unstoppable. She knew there was no shame in crying, that if Hanna was here now, she'd probably laugh a little and pull the smaller girl into her. Then she'd tell her to get up, get dressed and get over it.

They'd order pizza, if she were there, half green peppers, half pepperoni- her favorite. But she wasn't there, she was gone, and the only things left were tears and heartbreak.

She tried to convince herself that her leaving wasn't the worst thing ever. But who the hell was she kidding? It was the worst thing next to…there was no comparison. Since she left, she felt robotic. Going through the motions slowly, in a form of daze with no real purpose.

She denied feeling anything, sometimes. Pushing the hurt aside, not wanting to believe it- thinking that, maybe, if she ignored it, it would go away...after all, that's what Ali had told her all those years ago.

It hurt so much worse.

The past three weeks had hurt her more than anything ever had before.

She hadn't said the right things the first time she walked out of that door, furious after she found out by accident what the brunette had kept from her, in an attempt to protect her. And she hadn't even known that she was gone the time after that. The once chance she'd had, the brief glimpse of her that she'd seen on that sunny afternoon, two weeks ago, she had barely opened her mouth. That encounter had permanently ruined sunny days for her.

All she had managed to squeak out was that she should stay- never once saying why, just that she should. She told her that I needed her, sure. And that she was definitely sorry. But she didn't say what she should have.

Instead, she watched her walk out the door.

If only she could do it over, say the right words, do the right things. Then everything would be better. Everything would be perfect. She'd be there now. With her.

Now, she never would.

In the morning, the storm would have passed and the world would be waiting for her.

She'd go out; feeling as though everyone's eyes were on her,boring into her skin, watching her every move. She'd feel uncomfortable around them. Around everybody...because they weren't her.

Spencer tried to be sympathetic, but she was bad at it. Downright awful, in fact. The awkward pats on the back were annoying. The hushed whispering, as if she would break. It was horrible.

But the hardest thing in the world was getting up each morning and not seeing her at the foot of her bed, in her pajamas, with her blond hair tied back messily and no make up on. It felt wrong, showering in the morning and the water staying the same temperature, because she hadn't used all the hot water beforehand; and finding an immaculate kitchen, because she hadn't messed it up trying to cook.

That was the hardest thing: knowing that, if she had said just one thing differently, everything might have been changed. Any one of those morning routines would still be in place.

It was ironic, really. She was usually good with words. Hanna herself had told her that once, when the blond had messed something up with someone or something, once upon a time. She asked me to help her fix it, because she would know what to say. And usually, she knew exactly what to say.

But not now.

She kept wishing that she could turn around, in her previous place. Just once glance back. Then, she could chase her, run after her, and stop her.

Tell her everything.

Smash. Creak. Crack. Bang. Creak. Creak. Footsteps. Quick, purposeful, deliberate. Footsteps. Quick. Quick. Stop. Smack. Curse. Footsteps. Footsteps. Footsteps. Stop.

Breathing. Heavy breathing. Footsteps. Breathing. Louder. Louder. Louder. Smack. Footsteps. Footsteps. Laugh. Smack.

"Ari?" Spencer cried, scrambling off of her wife's lap and tripping as she did, catching herself at the last minute on the wooden railing of the crib; "Baby?"

Her head cleared and the view of her perfect child swam into her head. She gulped, caressing the side of her daughter's head briefly before glancing around the room. All was still, in the nursery at least. Emily was sleeping peacefully in the rocking chair, and her pretty baby was fast asleep in her crib, the laundry basket was a quarter full, her book was laying open on the changing table where she'd left it before, on page one hundred and ninety eight. Perfect and still.

Too perfect. Too still.

"Em?" She whispered to her wife, careful not to wake their daughter, "Emily, wake up?" The taller girl began to stir as her wife shook her by the shoulders, opening one eye sleepily to Spencer's desperation.

"Spence?" She murmured, "Spence, what's going on?"

"Em, I think I heard something. Someone." The brunette muttered darkly, continuing to inspect all aspects of the nursery with a keen eye.
"What?" Emily shrieked, shuddering as she shot a glance towards her daughter's sleeping form.

"Hey, hey don't panic," The shorter girl soothed, turning to face her wife for the first time since she'd woken her,
"Don't panic, Spence, really?" Emily hissed incredulously, "You think that you heard someone in our house, in the middle of the night, but it's okay, don't panic?"

"Actually, it's very early morning, not the middle of the night." She retorted factually. The darker girl glared at her,
"What difference does that make?"
"Believe it or not, it makes a lot of difference." The thinner girl smirked, her smile quickly falling from her face under her wife's glare, "Like, our security camera's work far better in the daylight. Plus, our sprinkler's came on exactly six minutes ago."

Emily laughed warily, reaching down and scooping her daughter out of her crib, pulling her tightly to her chest and kissing her soft hair.
"Have you been downstairs?" She asked cautiously, not wanting to impart any ideas of false heroism onto her wife.

"Nope, that's my next stop."
"Wait, Spence?" Her wife called after her, as she stepped quietly through the doorway,
"Hmm?"

On an impulse, the taller woman grabbed her wife fiercely by the hips, pulling her into her and kissing her hard. Biting down ferociously on her wife's lip, she slid her hand up her shirt gently, slipping her tongue inside the other girls mouth- kissing her in a way they hadn't since their wedding night; hungry for the contact and both oozing with desperation.

As she pulled away, Spencer grinned at her wife.
"Maybe we can continue that tonight?" She whispered seductively, taking her baby girl from Emily's arms and resting her in one of her own.
"You bet." The taller girl smirked, planting another soft kiss on her wife's lips.

"Excellent." The brunette grinned. "Now, I'm going to go and check the house over, just for my own peace of mind. Do you want to come with me, little lady?" Arianna gurgled happily, not appearing to be tired at all now. "I assume that means yes."

The scorching hot, summer sun blazed down on Pennsylvania, as school let out, on an average Friday afternoon, in June. The halls were empty, save a few teacher's grabbing a few last minute supplies for the weekend, and the grounds were littered with students, all obeying the unspoken rule that dictated that, after three o' clock, no kid was to remain within the building. Groups of fourteen year old girls sat upon the fresh cut grass, giggling over magazines and ogling the boys within their pages. The real boys walked in packs, all having adorned the same goofy grins and carrying some form of sporting equipment.

Yes, life was utopic as Aria Montgomery searched the crowd for any sign of her best friends. In all honesty, she was only looking for one of them- Hanna. As always, Emily would have swim practice, Spencer would have field hockey, or French, or Latin, or whatever else she did when school ended, and Ali? Well, Alison was seldom seen by any of the girls when she had no use for them.

But Hanna was always around. And that was just the way Aria liked it.

Spying the blond girl, she hurried towards her, her pink satchel flapping behind her knees as she weaved in and out of the maze of other students to reach the blond girl. She was perched on one of the outer school walls, her feet dangling a foot of the ground and her turquoise eyes surveying the scene below- searching for a deeper meaning. Grinning, she extended her hand out to the shorter girl and pulled her up next to her, where they sat and watched the young teenagers leak out of the school gates, eager to start the weekend.

But there was no hurry for Hanna, for she had everything she needed right beside her. Out of them all, Aria, she reckoned, was her best friend. There was something genuine between them that couldn't be described, something honest and raw. Spencer was brilliant, and witty, but she had a tendency to be slightly overbearing, and her insane speed, at which she did everything, was too much for Hanna to handle; Emily was beautiful and talented, but shy and awkward at times, and then there was Ali. And nothing was genuine with Alison.

But with Aria? With the brunette beside her, she always felt safe and comfortable, like she didn't have to be anything other than herself- probably because the shorter girl got more looks from judging teenage eyes, due to her eccentric appearance, than Hanna felt she did because of her weight. And she trusted her, oh yes, she'd trust this girl forever.

The sun beat down on the pale skin of Aria's exposed back, as she lay flat on her stomach along the top of the wall. To anyone else, this may have seemed dangerous, as the wall was at least five feet tall, but the quirky brunette had a way about her that no one questioned. She glanced up from her sketch pad momentarily, placing the end of her charcoal pencil between her front teeth thoughtfully.

"What are you drawing?" The blond girl asked her, peering over the book and taking in the upside down picture,
"Just what I see." She smiled back, setting the pencil to the paper again and beginning to carve the color expertly into her desired shape.
"Hey! Don't draw me!" Hanna moaned, blushing furiously, but rolling her eyes to try and detract attention from it.

"I'm not just drawing you." Aria retorted, "I'm drawing everything."
"But I'm the only one here." She moaned indignantly. The brunette pressed her lips together in concentration, and shook her head slowly,
"Nope." She muttered.

"Here." She said five minutes later, ripping the paper carefully from the pad and handing it to Hanna with a cryptic smile. "I have to get home, my mom needs help with dinner." She jumped of the wall in true Aria fashion, landing expertly on her feet with a dull thud in front of the blond girl.

They both waved, and bade each other goodbye, and her blue eyes stayed fixated on her back until she was out of sight entirely. Only then did she allow them to wander to the picture in her hands: a charcoal sketch of herself, against the schools background and the summer sun. Perfectly detailed, and somehow capturing the essence of the summer entirely.

She smiled to herself as she read the message that had been hidden in among the brick on the wall, in Aria's perfect, loopy handwriting.

'You're beautiful, never forget that. Love, Aria.'

"Come into bed, Spence." Emily whispered huskily, checking the clock to see that it was only just past seven AM, and that they'd pretty much been up all night. Normally, she would have a conscience about going back to bed when there were a thousand and one other things for her to be doing. Her wife, however, seemed to have no such conscience as she pulled off her shirt and clambered into bed beside her.

"Spence..." The taller girl whispered into the darkness of their bedroom, "Spencer. I'm scared." The brunette smiled wryly, rolling over to face Emily and feeling for her hands under the sheets.
"I know, beautiful." she whispered, so close now that her wife could feel her breath on her face, and it comforted her. "But life pushes you around sometimes, and it get's tough. And you start to hurt and feel weak, and when that time comes, you just need to hope that you have someone around to tell you that you're a fighter, and that you will make it through. And you will, because you have me." She leaned forward and kissed her softly on the nose, smiling in the dark as she did, "And Aria, and Hanna. And we all have each other, okay? We'll get through this."

"I remember, Spence..." She mumbled, "I remember more than I ever told you that I knew." Her wife nodded understandingly, maneuvering her body to rest the vulnerable girls head on her shoulder. Emily sighed and closed her eyes at the contact. This was what she needed, what she wanted. To her, Spencer was magic; plain and simple.

It had never mattered what was going on in her life, the brunette had always had the ability to make everything go quiet in her head. Whether her Ali was giving her a hard time over her sexuality, her mother telling her she wasn't good enough, or even just worrying about something as trivial was what to wear to school that day...Spencer could make her world stop, and even if it was only for a moment, it had always made her feel like nothing bad could touch her.

That's what she needed now, to forget, even for just one second.

Sighing again, Emily rubbed her face into the brunette's shoulder trying to wipe some of the tears away as her wife ran her hand through her hair slowly.

"You okay?" The thinner girl asked in a low tone, "Dumb question, right?" She continued, when the other girl failed to answer her.

"I can still smell him." She whispered, barely audible over the sound of her wife's breathing.

Spencer closed her eyes tightly as her own memories, of those weeks, surfaced in her mind,

"Yeah." She agreed, with a hoarse voice, fighting her emotions to be strong for Emily.

"I don't need a picture to remember what he looked like Spence, I see him every time I close my eyes at night." The taller girl continued, as she felt the arms around her pull her closer into the brunette.

"I was so scared I couldn't sleep for over a week, and even then I had to keep the light on because when I woke up, from the nightmares, I had trouble believing he wasn't there anymore." Emily admitted, wondering when they'd stopped talking about it, and if Spencer remembered as clearly as she did, herself. "I remember how it felt when he held me down, when he hit me. And I don't think I'll ever forget the look he had in his eyes the whole time, like he wasn't really there."

Spencer nodded, she could remember everything that happened too, but, by letting her express how she was feeling, she hadn't meant to have her wife reliving every second of it.

"But you sleep okay now though, right?" The brunette asked, as a few of her own tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Mostly." She replied, before her hand tilted her wife's face up to look at her. "But, I think, between the two of us we should be able to keep the nightmares away." She said seriously, wanting Spencer to know that, no matter what either of them happened to be feeling, they were never alone.

"Good." Spencer breathed happily, glad that she could let go of her thoughts for now. She was lucky, she knew, to have someone, so close, who got her in the way she got Emily. To sympathize, to understand that, if you could push what had happened out of your mind, you could pretend that it doesn't effect you as much as it truly does. She had done the exact same thing when they had lost Alison.

Only Emily had seen it for the act that it was, and this time Spencer was going to be there every step of the way, just as she had been for her. She'd be there for the silence, the anger, the tears, she'd let her wife cope in her own way until she was ready to accept the help offered to her.

Paradoxically, this time, it seemed worse. It was in the past, she knew, but being older, having a family, and the new realms of responsibility that came with it, had made A's reappearance harder on all of them...especially the girl beside her.

"Hey." Spencer said softly, as she felt her wife's arm jerk against her, whilst she tried to settle down to sleep. "Shh, its okay Em, you're safe now, you're safe." She continued tightening her hold on the younger girl and tucking her head under her chin.

"He can't hurt you anymore, or me," She promised, feeling the remaining energy drain from her wife, "And definitely not our daughter."

Aria Montgomery knocked loudly on the pristine, white door of the Marin household, with her backpack slung over one shoulder and clutching her duvet, that was spilling out of the garbage bag that her father had insisted on wrapping it in, in her arms. At only just five feet tall, it was almost as big as she was. She heard a high pitch giggle great her, when the door was flung open, and she fought with the mess of cotton to catch the eye of it's originator.

The blue eyes that stared back at her sparkled with anticipation and childish free-spirit, an enigma to her own dark orbs that knew dark creativity, only. Her big, goofy grin reciprocated the giggle, but she wasn't sure if the blond could see it over her sleeping arrangements.

Laughing again, the larger girl grabbed it out of her hands, tucking it under one arm and taking Aria's hand with her other, pulling her in the direction of the staircase. The brunette's heart fluttered with excitement; this was their first sleepover. Ever.

It wasn't surprising though, despite the both of them being thirteen years old. Hanna was the dork of their new click, and Aria was the freak of, well, everywhere. But they'd seen past that in each other.

Aria's darkness was a charade, the blond knew, a thin veneer of thick make up and dark clothing, covering her raw emotion and crazy talent. She had yet to learn more about the girl beside her, but something about the brunette fascinated the other girl. There was nothing about Aria, it seemed, that would judge her, and that excited her. In a way that she'd never felt before. Her heart fluttered when they spoke, and she got goosebumps whenever she caught her eye.

"So, where's your room?" The shorter girl asked politely, following her friend down the hall, her wide eyes taking in every sight that met them,
"Just down here," The other girl motioned in front of her, before swinging open the door ceremoniously, and allowing Aria to walk inside first.

"What's your bedroom like?" Hanna asked casually, as the two settled down on the floor together, in a mass of bed clothes, leaning against the edge of the bed after having decided that, at real sleepovers, girls slept on the floor.

"Um," The paler girl whispered in thought, "Well, it has, um, a bed. And a desk. And, um..." The blond giggled, "A white paneled ceiling, that slopes either side, with big windows across the far wall- three of them, but I have really thick curtains. I like my room to be pitch black. My desks an antique, and so's my vanity, but that's really more like a chest of drawers, they came in a set though, at a really col vintage auction. My closet's hidden in the wall, and I have iron shelves above my bed for my books. Oh, and I collect pillows. Lots of them."

The blond smiled, feeling as though she'd finally gotten Aria to open up properly to her,
"I'd like to see it sometime," She smiled, blushing slightly. The brunette smiled awkwardly back for a second, before her brown eyes it up with glee,
"Maybe you could sleep over next weekend!"

Hanna grinned,
"I'd like that," She admitted coyly. And, as if by magic, both girls felt the same frisson; in each others company, they had felt safe, and had assumed that they always would.

But with nothing but the memory in her grasp, Aria Montgomery was left to second guess everything that they had ever felt.

A/N

Thoughts on this chapter?

I apologize for the lack of an update on All Your Secrets and More, I have sincere writers block; if you have any suggestions for it, PM me, or review it.

Ten reviews for an M-scene?

All the best,
~LaughLoveLiveXx