Hello, my Emisonians, people of the Emison-trash kingdom! It's nice to see your eyes again :)

Ok, time to do a little house-cleaning! First off! If you guys read my other Emison fic, "Acquired Madness", you would already know the reason for my abrupt hiatus. For those of you whole don't know, the reason why it has taken me quite a while to update not only this story but any of my stories is because my father has been deployed and it really sucked out any ambition I had to write. However, I love to write and I would hate to leave you guys hanging like a failed high five so I'm back :)

Onto some other news…Now I'm going to need you guys to be seating for this one…

Book 1 of Trouvaille is soon to come to an end.

BUT! The story will not end, no bob it won't. Think of this as in the Season 1 finale of Trouvaille is coming up. There will be a Season 2!

I'm very particular about organization and I didn't want this fic to be like 300k words with 50 chapters. I want to break it up and spread out a bit like a series. So yes! I want to tell you guys this now and randomly at the end of a chapter like, "Hey guys! So yeah….this fic is now completed and I'm ending this book with this chapter lol!"

So, like you guys, I tend to reread this story as well. Skipping around, just randomly reading chapters as if I'm not the author of this story. One thing I've noticed? My writing was pretty cringe-worthy in the beginning haha. Well to me anyways. There I was, just thrusting myself in the world of literature that I haven't been apart of since my early teens. But 26 chapters later, I have noticed evolution! I describe in more detail, I try to really drive emotions and reality home for you guys to relate to, aaaand

I WRITE LONGER. GOOD LORD DO I WRITE MORE.

I remember the good ol' days where my chapters were like 2,500 words and I would be like, "Whew! I am beat! That was a lot!" Now 2,500 words is just the opening scene of my chapters nowadays. I'm pushing out at least 6k words a chapter. This chapter is 10k words by itself! I don't think you guys mind, right? ;)

CHAPTER #26: Alison Wonderland

Italics means thoughts, emphasized word or action. Bolded is a flashback. (….) is an indication that time has passed

Emily unlocks her front door with the brightness of the floor hallway behind her seeping into her apartment, shinning onto Spencer and Aria who continued to lay deep within their sleep on the couch. Quietly closing the door, Emily slips out of her shoes and pushes them against the wall with a shove of her feet before she walks across the floor of her living room. Seeing two out of three wasn't bad, however, she walked the path to her bedroom to see if Hanna was still awake. The brunette quietly jogs up her stairs to find the blonde laying on her bed ever so comfortably on her phone. Barely acknowledging her presence with just a glance from the corner of her eye, Hanna doesn't show any form of greeting as Emily jumps into bed with a soft groan.

"Where were you?" Hanna's words come out low and stern like a pissed off girlfriend who tried to keep her composure before she blew the top of her lid.

"Where was I?" Emily looks at Hanna with a short-side glance, her eyebrows pinched at the questioning of her location, "I went to get your car that we all seemingly forgot about."

"Took you a pretty long time to come back…"

Getting comfortable, Emily nuzzles the back of her head into her pillow as she raises her arm to rest over her eyes, "You know how far the go-karting place is. It's out of the city. Of course it's gonna take me a minute to go to and from."

"I know….I also know that it shouldn't take you two hours to get the car and come back." Hanna's strict tone slides off her tongue as she scrolls through her social media application, keeping her voice at a low murmur, "It's not that far out."

Emily removes her arm from on top of her eyes and turns to face her emotionless friend that laid beside her, "…What are you trying to get at, Hanna?"

For the first time, Hanna peels herself away from her phone, locking the screen as she stared over at Emily. Their eye contact lasts only for brief second before she reached over towards the night stand on her side, "What's this?" she held up the DLSR camera with the display screen facing the brunette.

"Uhmmm…my camera?" Emily answers back with a hint of sarcasm masked within her confusion as she shakes her head, stating the obvious.

"No shit." Hanna rolls her eyes, "What the hell is on it?" Pressing play on the camera, Hanna tosses the camera into Emily's hands and within an instant, without having to look at the screen, Emily recognizes the ambience coming from the video and knew what video Hanna stumbled upon, "So this is what you're doing? You're recording your sexual activities with her now?" Hanna flicks her hands at the camera while she talks, drawing the skin around her eyes tight as she stares down at Emily, "What, am I going to find you two on a porn site next?"

"Get the hell out of here." Emily pauses the video and chucks the camera to the side with her eyes narrowed and mouth hung open in annoyance, "We were on her rooftop talking and the kiss happened. There is no way I blatantly recorded us just for that purpose. I turned it off immediately afterwards."

"What the fuck-"

"Wait a second…" Emily adjusts herself to sit up as she tried to get a handle on things before they blew out of proportion, "You're getting riled up but you were snooping through my things. If you're trying to search for something, don't get mad at me when you find something you don't like." Emily rebuttal to Hanna's random attitude strikes a chord with the blonde, causing her to close her mouth and hold Emily's gaze in the quiet and dark room. Instantly feeling bad for snapping back, Emily sighs with a head bow, "Hanna, what's wrong?"

"The issue I'm having is that I called you like eight times and you didn't answer not one call, even when I know you had your phone on you." Hanna's voice raises a level above a whisper as she releases her recent feelings towards her friend.

Emily runs her hand through the root of her hair as she lays herself back down into her bed, knowing that she was in the wrong for leaving Hanna out in the dark from not answering her constant calling, "I'm sorry, Han. I meant to call back when I was on the road but I forgot."

"And you had Alison with you." Hanna narrows her eyes as she looked down at Emily lying next to her, "Didn't you?"

"Yeah, she drove the rental back since you guys were sleeping. She helped out."

"You saw me calling, Emily. You knew I was calling and you purposely didn't answer."

"I was driving!"

"Bullshit. You've never been one for driving safely. You snapchat while you drive for fucks' sake, you're always on your phone."

"Woah." Emily arises from her resting position once again, cocking her head slightly to one side as she gawks with her now watchful eyes, "Did something catch on fire?"

Hanna rolls her eyes, "No, I-"

"Was someone at risk of dying?"

"No-"

"Was there severe situation that needed my presence immediately that would have caused me to do 100 on the highway?"

Hanna clenches her jaw as she fixes her posture, holding the tense eye contact between them both, "No."

"Then where is all of this coming from right now?" Emily shifts onto her side and looks at Hanna up and down with now softer and concerned eyes, "Your anger? Why are you blowing up at me?"

"Because I just don't like the fact I was blatantly ignored several times." Hanna leaves Emily's eyes and faces forward into the darkness of Emily's room, crossing her arms as she feels the heat of her aggression gradually start boiling every time she says it out loud, "You didn't answer me just because you had Alison in your car."

"That's not true." Emily exhales as she rubs her face in exasperation. The more times Hanna brings up the fact that Emily ignored her phone calls, the worse she begins feeling. She didn't answer the calls not because she was with Alison, she ignored them because she was…busy. Either way, she does feel at fault that she didn't at least text her the whole drive back to her apartment, "Hanna, we were asleep-we all were asleep. I woke up and tried to wake you up to go get the car. You were the one who said you were incapable of driving so, yes, I called for backup. Ok? Alison helped us."

"You had two capable people downstairs. You could have woke them up." Hanna scoffs with a small head shake, shaking off Emily's attempt to make it seem like Alison saved the day if it wasn't for her contribution, "But no, you just decided to sneak into the night with her…for two fucking hours."

"I didn't want to wake up Spencer and Aria." Emily groans as she feels like she's fighting a losing battle for an action that she should be getting thank yous instead of getting her head chopped off, "Besides….Alison is my girlfriend, Hanna. We are dating. Of course I'm going to want to be around her when I can. And when I need help, she's the first person I'm going to run to."

"Really?" Hanna snaps her head in Emily's direction on beat at the end of Emily's sentence, "She's going to be the first person you run to when you need help?"

"Hanna…"

"No-no, you're right." Hanna surrenders with her hands lifted up, scooting off her side of the bed, and stands on her feet with Emily staring at her, confused as to what was going on, "You two are together and I'm just the friend that shouldn't get in the middle of your relationship."

Emily rolls off the bed as well, standing on the opposite side of Hanna as she goes to defend her bad choice of wording, "You know that's not what I meant-"

"But that's how it is, right?" Hanna continues on with her now sharp tongue, not even allowing Emily to finish her sentence as she crosses her arms, "When it comes to Alison, I should know my place."

"Know your place…?" Emily repeats in a cloud of confusion as walked over to the other side of the bed, beetling her forehead and her eyes squinted. She takes in a second to understand this entire situation: Hanna's behavior, the missed calls, the appearing element of jealousy towards Alison, Emily raises her hands to her face and rubs both of her eyes before she let out a long drawn out breath as she stands right in front of Hanna, "This isn't it-there's something else…..What are you really upset about, Hanna?"

Staring at Emily through the tiny gleam of light surrounded by darkness, Hanna's blue eyes shimmer in the slight illumination as she clenches her jaw, preventing herself from saying anything else. The room stands quiet for a moment before Hanna breathes out a sigh, "Nothing."

Emily searches into her friend's eyes for the truth within, knowing that she's lying to her through her mouth. Defensive and protective attitudes doesn't just dissipate to nothing, not when there is a source fire that has yet to be extinguished. Hanna begins to feel herself shrink under Emily's intrusive stare down to the point that she knew it would be just seconds before she'd crack. If there was one thing Emily possessed, her wide, brown eyes could be very intimating when used in a menacing way. Hanna always believed that she could pursue criminal justice and become an interrogator or maybe some kind of mobster, either or she's sure that Emily could get people to break. Right as Hanna breathed in, ruffling came from the lower level as quick footsteps ascended up the stairs, revealing to be the two sleeping beauties.

"Guys! We forgot about the car!" Aria alarmingly noted to Emily and Hanna as she and Spencer introduced themselves dumbfounded.

Hanna waves them off, "Don't worry. Emily went and got it."

A wave of relief passes over Aria and Spencer as Aria runs her hands through her hair and turns to the side to face Spencer with a thankful sigh. "Both of you guys went?" Spencer asked out of confirmation.

"Nope, just Emily." Hanna holds her gaze with Emily who looks at her back with curious yet narrowed eyes, still trying to understand her.

"Just you?" Aria turns back to Emily and Hanna, looking at the brunette specifically with her finger pointed at her, "H-how did you drive two vehicles?"

Emily opens her mouth to speak but Hanna cuts her off as she continues to speak on behalf of her, "She called Alison and she went with her to get the car." Emily slowly gives a single nod for her response as she kept on sights on Hanna, not even looking at the other two brunettes that are staring in-between the two of them. The room grows silent once more with Aria and Spencer exchanging a brief look to each other.

"Wow…" Spencer pouts her lips out as a single hand reaches the back of her neck, "That was…that's nice of her to do that."

"Well, honestly, that's a relief because I'm still sore from that freaking race." Aria stretches out her arms above her head as she rose up on her toes, "Come downstairs with me, Han." she falls back to normal height as she extends her hand out for Hanna to grab, nodding her head in the direction of the stairs, "Let's relax while you feed me whatever is left in Emily's fridge." Hanna peels her eyes off of Emily and onto Aria with a very subtle smile that she's fighting hard against to not make an appearance on her face. However, Aria catches onto the hardness in Hanna's face smoothed away and she leans in and grabs Hanna's hand, getting a soft smile from the blonde before she quickly covered it up with a lip bite. Aria holds onto Hanna's arm like a love-struck teenager as they both trot themselves down the stairs leaving Emily watching Hanna leave her with Spencer who suspiciously eyes Emily.

"Is everything ok?"

Emily changes sights onto Spencer and lets out a deep breath as she walked back onto her bed, taking a seat, "Yeah… it's just exhaustion still kicking in, you know?" she rubbed her face, trailing her hands into her hair as she gave Spencer a smile to prevent her from asking any questions that could potentially turn this peaceful night into a game of jeopardy. "Nothing too big."

"Hanna, what's going on?"

"Nothing." Hanna responds nonchalantly as she turns on the kitchen light and opens Emily's fridge for the sixth time that night. She's visited the kitchen so many times in one time frame that she could probably recite exactly what was in the brunette's refrigerator from top to bottom without looking. Still getting something new this time around, she reaches for the case of fruit and closes the doors, turning to face a rather displeased, tiny Aria who had her hands placed on her hips.

"This is not nothing, I know you." the smaller brunette pressed on through Hanna's façade, "What's wrong? You can tell me."

Hanna rolls her eyes with her head throw back in a sigh as she grips the container of strawberries in her grasp, "I took time off of my job, flew over here, letting money fly out the window per day to spend time with you guys and to see Emily," Hanna brings her eyes back down to Aria with an annoyed facial expression, "Not to see fucking Alison. Ever since we got here, all I've been seeing is her." Hanna walks over to Emily's dining table set in the space between her kitchen and living room and pulls out a chair with Aria following after her, "Emily is always trying to bring her over, trying to bring her in our circle. When we first got here, I see Alison. When we came over the next morning, I see Alison again. You guys basically forced me to talk to her when I had no intention to." As she spoke, she could just feel the irritation build up inside of her at just the mere thought of how her small vacation turned out. Hanna opens the box and pulls out a thick and red strawberry, taking a bite of the bottom half as she begins talking again, "I just want to spend time with Emily but whenever she's not talking, she's texting her. Like all day. I look over my shoulder to look at her and she on the freaking phone. I mean, I love Caleb; I'm madly in love with that sexy bastard but you don't see me glued to my phone, dying to talk to him when I'm around you guys. Now that broad is in my rental, driving in my car, touching everything inside, messing with the seat adjustments- she's fucking everywhere. I wanted to leave that bitch in Rosewood but now she's with my best friend."

Not entirely expecting such an angery rant coming out of Hanna, more like a small disagreement that she would have been able to solve just by listening to both sides, Aria slowly nods her head as she watches Hanna wolf down the strawberry in her hand, "Hanna…I get it. You're still not keen to the idea of her but…it seems like she's changed like how Emily said-"

"She hasn't changed." Hanna scoffs with a forced chuckle.

"Well, I think she has. Look, I didn't like the thought of her neither but seeing her now, Emily might be right."

"Ok, good." Hanna laughs as she reaches for another strawberry, "Make me seem like the bad guy."

"Hanna, I-"

"Emily was literally going to fight me over her." Hanna bluntly cuts Aria off as she leans closer to her, her eyes widen with a mixture of remembrance and shock, the fruit squeezed within her grip, forgotten. "I'm sorry that I'm not so willing to open my arms to this girl like you three are. I'm sorry that I don't trust her as far as I can throw her. We deal with that girl and her shit all throughout basically our childhood and the second I see her a few years later, because she's quiet and she does these shy and timid smiles, I'm supposed to suck her off?"

Aria snorts from Hanna's ranting, being caught off-guard from her last remark. Through her laughter, she looks at Hanna who sits eating her food unbothered, "Nobody's sucking her off, Hanna." the brunette giggles. However, the moment the words leave her mouth, she takes a second thought as she tilts her head to the side, "Well…"

"I wouldn't even trust that girl to tie my fucking shoes." Hanna continues on with her tirade as she digs for another strawberry, "And can you blame me? Can you actually blame me? She hasn't proven anything to me otherwise. Now to think when I call Emily that she's going to be around her-oh!" Hanna smiles at Aria with a big cheesy grin which throws the small brunette for a loop at the sudden change of emotions from her friend, "Who am I kidding? She won't even pick up the phone if she was around Alison. But you know what? I'm just overreacting."

Before Aria could even say anything in response to Hanna's comment, footsteps come trailing down the stairs, gaining both girls attention as they see Spencer and Emily make their way across the living room towards them. Hanna looks down at her strawberries and continues eating them with no care while Aria and Spencer exchange brief, silent looks that only they can mentally decipher.

"So uhm…since we're all awake…." Emily runs her hand awkwardly through her long, dark brown hair before shoving them into her jeans, "you guys up to watch something?"

"Yeah."

"Sure." Spencer and Aria both agree with a head nod to something relativity relaxing on the night before their flight in the morning.

"Okay, but if we do, all phones are banned." Hanna authoritatively commands with a smug smile, getting up from the dining table with her fruit and strolls by Emily, just barely brushing past her as she walks in the direction of the couch. Not completely understanding but sensing some hidden animosity, Emily's eyes stare at the ground, squinted, as Hanna passes her before she takes a quick glance over at Aria who shrugs back at her in return.

…

With the night comforting over the girls for their last time together, morning quickly came and so did the time. Emily showered, got ready, and followed after her friends to the airport to drop off their rental and to send them off to their separate flights that so happen to be at different times around the same time frame.

"Alright, tell Toby I said hello," Emily hugs Spencer as she grabs her bags on her way to her gate for her flight that had just been announced.

"I will, I will." the brunette gushes in the embraces as she bear hugs Emily, swaying from side to side for their lasting hug. "It was great seeing you again, Emmmmmillly."

….

"C'mere, short stuff." Emily lets out a big sigh as she extends her arms out towards Aria, "I'm going to miss seeing your pretty, widdlo face around my apartment." she smiles at the brunette, wiggling her fingers but Aria holds her purse and glares at Emily, unmoving. Hanna confusedly looks in-between both Emily and Aria, not understanding why Aria became cold all of a sudden.

"That means get a move on, thigh-high."

"Okay," an irritated Aria pipes up with her finger lifted in the air as she passes a glance at her friends, "one more short joke out of any of you and I swear, I'm going to hit both of you so hard, your DNA is going to shift. Your great-grandkids are gonna invent time-travel just to come back to try to stop this event from happening."

Emily and Hanna burst out laughing at Aria's unexpected threat, finding it truly hilarious and benign. Aria holds her stance seriously as she watches her friends lean on each other as they laugh at her "threat".

"Get over here, Aria." Emily manages to get out through her giggling as she walks up to the smaller brunette and forcefully pulls her into a hug. Hanna follows behind and turns the hug into a group hug and embraces Aria tightly from behind.

"You're not gonna to hit anyone, especially if you're trying to make it past TSA."

"Well if you guys keep pushing me, I might just take that risk."

"You would make yourself a flight risk." Hanna pulls away from the hug, side-eyeing Aria suspiciously with a finger wag, "I gotta look out for you…You're one of those low-key, psychotic people that nobody knows about until half the neighborhood is murdered."

"And you bitches would be my first two victims." Aria smiles haughtily at the accusation as she adjusts the bag on her shoulder, blowing the girls a kiss with a wave, "Ta-ta!" Aria spins on her heels and shamelessly struts away to her gate, leaving Hanna and Emily to ponder her last words to themselves.

"Damn…." Emily crosses her arms as her eyes stayed glued on Aria navigating her way out of the waiting lobby to her plane, "You don't think she meant that…do you?"

"Yeah, for you maybe. She loves me." Hanna blatantly replies as she turns back to her chair where she waits for her flight.

….

With Hanna's flight to JFK the last one called out of Philadelphia, Emily gets ready to say her goodbyes to her best friend early this morning.

"Alright, baaaaby giiiiirl." Emily springs to her feet, getting ready to squeeze Hanna into a hug as her announcement is made over the intercom, "Time for you to go back to work to provide for our seven kids. And Oh?" a smile slowly creeps onto Emily's face as she hunkers down slightly, pointing her fingers at Hanna's stomach mischievously, "Do I sense we have another one on the waaaaay?"

"Stop it." Hanna smacks Emily's away from her with an annoyed face that hid the smallest of a smile. With the fluff of her hair, she grabs her leopard Christian Louboutin messenger bag and hooks onto her arm, "I'm requesting a marriage counselor when I get back."

Emily's smile is transformed into a surprised jaw-drop at the words of her play wife and mother of her full house, "Marriage counseling? We don't need a marriage counselor. We're perfectly happy the way we are-why would we need a marriage counselor? What do we need to counsel?" the words fumble out of Emily's mouth as her posture changes from confused to denial to self-justifying all within five seconds of standing in front of the blonde.

"You and your reckless behavior." Hanna sighs as she pulls out her iPhone, ignoring Emily staring her down with her signature wide eyes, "It's starting to affect the kids."

Emily's eyes dart back and forth in front of her as a collection of uncoherent, babbling noises leave her mouth all at once as she tried to defend herself in the midst of her sudden allegations. But before she could even fully pronounce an actual word, Hanna minimizes the gap between them with a harsh whisper.

"Christina came to me last night and asked me what a G-string was. A G-string?" Hanna narrows her eyes as she tilts her head to the side, "Really, Emily? I know we have this god-forsaken open relationship but in front of the kids, really?"

Dazed in utter confusion, Hanna shakes her head with a roll of her eyes, grabs Emily's head, and leans it down towards her, placing a kiss on her forehead before she walks off to her gate to her flight back to New York. After the morning she had just had, sealing it off with a road heading to divorce with Hanna, Emily giggles to herself with her tongue pressed against the inside of her cheek as she twirls her keys around her finger. She makes sure Hanna is long gone, safely out of sight before she merrily prances her way out of the airport lobby.

…..

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Silence….

Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock!

The door opens to find Emily on the opposite end, grinning ever so happily, as she leaned against the door frame in her blue water fall, long sleeve, denim cardigan rolled up her forearms over her white crop top, white shredded jeans and Adidas sneakers. "Alriiiight, our day date staaarts…." she brings her wrist up to eye level to see the time on her watch, letting some seconds past for dramatic effect, "right now."

Alison blinks emptily at Emily, not knowing if she was serious or not, but seeing that the brunette was fully dressed, she figured that she wasn't joking.

"I'm…I'm not even ready to go out yet." Alison grimaces down at her nightwear. Before Emily was banging on her door, Alison had just gotten up about 20 minutes prior; 15 of those minutes was her on her bed telling herself to get up. It was barely 9 in the morning.

"That's fine." Emily shrugs off Alison's appearance, taking it barely with a grain of salt, "I'll wait for you until you are." Emily continues to rest herself against Alison's doorframe as Alison looks at Emily with a confused yet accepting smile that lingers between them for an awkward and silent five seconds, "I mean…I could wait inside your apartment or out in the hallway, either or is fine with me." Emily coughs out with a teasing smile as she looks down at the floor, crossing her foot over the other as she got herself comfortable.

"Oh-uhm-come in, come in!" Alison jumps up and moves to the side, opening the door and ushering Emily into her apartment. Emily pushes herself off the frame by her shoulder as she waltzed her way in with a sway in her walk, "I…didn't even ….expect you….to….ok." Alison shuts up, closing the door behind them.

….

As Alison showered and did her morning routine to prepare herself for her day-out, Emily sat comfortably on her couch as she skimmed through the various programs playing on the TV. When she told Alison yesterday that she wanted to spend the whole day with her, she didn't exactly have an itinerary printed out so she just decided to go out and be impulsive, go on a whim and let the wind decide where the day takes them.

"Did the girls already leave?" Alison asked as she stood looking at herself through the mirror in her bathroom, brushing through her newly blown out hair.

"Yeah, their flights were pretty early so I followed them to the airport, said my goodbyes and came straight here." Emily casually responded as she rested the remote down beside her, deciding to stop the channel on a running episode of Judge Judy. "Whatever you want to do, let's do it. There is nothing holding us back today." Emily claps loud enough for Alison to hear, "First thing that comes to your mind! Go!"

Caught off guard, Alison stares at herself in the mirror with her mouth hanging open as she begins to style her hair, not even thinking about a location for a date, "Uhhh-"

"First thing! Don't think!"

"Serena." Alison blurts out randomly, instantly doing a mental facepalm for her stupid answer.

"Ooookay!" Emily jumps to her feet and approaches the open bathroom door. She stands there for a moment, rubbing her hands together as she looks at Alison through the mirror, "….Who's Serena?"

Alison shakes her head to herself as she puts down her brush and opts for a comb to begin sectioning off her hair, "The movie Serena. Depression-era drama with Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper. I've been interested to see what that movie is about and I was watching over a trailer of it before you came that's why that was the first thing that came out…"

"Well, Serena it is." Emily shrugs coolly with a warm and receptive smile as she digs into her back pocket for her phone, "We'll buy tickets and go hop right in to see it."

"Movies?" Alison scrunches up her face in total bewilderment, gawking at Emily as if she had just spoke gibberish to her, "Now? In the morning?"

"Yeah, why not?" Emily responded back in her continued lax tone, not moving her eyes from her phone as she typed away, "I mean tickets are genuinely less expensive early in the day because nobody is there, right? Plus, we have the whole theater to ourselves to stretch out and talk to our heart's content." Emily briefly looks up at Alison with a razzle dazzle of a smile.

"I've…just never been to a theater that wasn't packed let alone in the morning." Alison slowly allows herself to submerge into the idea of a morning movie date as she continues back into her hair.

"It'll be fine, don't worry." the brunette waves Alison down as she mindlessly walks closer to the bathroom, staring at her screen as she leans against the frame of its door, "Alright soooo…the next showing for Serena is at 11…." Emily peeks up at the blonde with a raised, playful eyebrow with a smirk to match, "Do you wanna try and catch that one?"

….

"Two tickets for the 11am showing of Serena, please?"

"Your total will be $17.20."

"Tickets are just getting more and more expensive…" Emily mumbles to herself as she fishes out her bills in her wallet. Upon seeing the price flash overhead, Alison digs into her purse to pay her ticket separately when halfway getting together her money she sees Emily slide out a $20 and hand it over to the teller, "Here ya go." As the employee does the transaction and Emily puts away her wallet, Alison peeks over at the brunette at the corner of her eye with a bit of surprise that she picked up the bill. Emily doesn't catch onto the look as her eyes are trained on the boy in front of her sorting back her change, making sure he's doing his job right, not sifting her not even a penny.

"$2.80 is your change," the worker rips out her receipt and places both the paper and money back into Emily's hand, "Enjoy your movie."

"Thank you." the brunette gives a single head nod to the employee before she leads Alison out of the hardly existing line holding three other people, hand in hand. As they walked, Alison, dressing in contrast to Emily's bright colors with a black, lapel zipper coat over her red blouse, black jeans, and black boots, kept glancing over at Emily, wanting to ask her why she paid for both of them when she was capable of paying for her own ticket. However, when Emily felt Alison's eyes on her, she turned to face her, causing Alison to bite her tongue. Emily caught onto this hesitation.

Noticing the small gasp she let out and instant closing of her mouth upon being seen, Emily points in the direction of the food they were about to pass, "You want to go to concessions?"

"Yeah." Alison quickly covers up with a forced smile, "Yeah, sure."

….

With medium sprite, box of skittles and Willy Wonka nerds, Emily holds the quick option of snacks in her hands as she and Alison walk into their designated auditorium.

And just as expected, not a soul in sight.

"Wow." Alison stares over the entire auditorium in awe of the vast emptiness as the large screen playing commercials reflects off the seats, showing them that this whole room is theirs for the taking.

"Well, I never told you this but uhm…" Emily sways side to side with a frisky yet secretive smile as they stop in the middle of the leveled floor, catching Alison's attention in a bit of a few different ways, "This room is another part of my apartment, actually. You never left my place. This is just an additional add-on that I have stored secretly within the city that nobody knows about." Alison begins giggling at Emily's confession which immediately gains a check in the brunette's head for her to keep going, "You know, I don't tell most people because they'll be like, "Ah! Oh my gosh! Emily! Can I come over?" and all that pestering, you know, just using me for my money."

"I can see why." Alison cheek rise up to her eyes as she nods her head amused, putting her hands on her hips, she twists her body to face the inner part of the room. "This is gigantic. I've never seen anything like this on MTV Cribs."

"Yup…This is my theater room." Emily takes a few steps as she gazes out with arrogance, taking in a deep and dramatic sigh, "I've only came in here like twice…maybe three times this year? I don't come here a lot because it takes up a lot of electricity. But because I'm with you…" Emily turns around to face Alison who still has a small smile on her face, listening to Emily ramble on about her private lifestyle. The brunette wide grin softens down to a mere buzz, "I'll waste the whole damn city's power if I have to." The entire theater stands quiet between the two girls with the sound of the pre-movie advertisement sounding off in the background. Alison and Emily share a momentary gaze with Alison feeling all the heat rushing up to her face with every millisecond passing by. Biting her lip as she turns away, Emily extends her hands to showcase the open spacing, "Chose a seat, any seat you want."

The blonde breathes out, trying to relieve herself and her blushing cheeks from such a smooth, unexpected line that –if it was anyone else-, she would have scoffed disgustedly at. However, coming from Emily, the words didn't come off as a line or some kind of charm. Her words flowed out naturally, which is why she believes she's still blushing right now. "How about the top in the middle?"

Emily looks back at Alison with that once again mischievous smile creeping its way back on her face, "I'll race you there."

And with that, a more relaxed smile slides across Alison's face as the thought of a sudden challenge interested her. "Okay."

Hearing Alison give her green light, Emily pauses the blonde with a raise of her finger before she quickly jogged to the other side of the auditorium to the set of the stairs mounting up the opposite side of the aisles. She excitedly holds onto the drink and two boxes of candy in her hands as she leans in, ready to sprint up the stairs. She flashes a look on the other side where she sees Alison readying herself to do the exact same. "Ready?!" Emily calls out eagerly as if she just reverted back to being eight years old all over again, "Set?! …GO!"

Within that same breath, both girls raced up the steps, determined to beat the other. However, of course with her physical advantage over the blonde, Emily treads more ground faster than Alison and reaches towards the middle of the top rows but instantly is faced with a dilemma.

"Wait! Which seat in the middle there's like 100 of them?!" She blurts out as she finds herself dodging up and down the stairs as she sees Alison fidgeting to think as the race was still in ongoing.

"This one!" Alison yells, randomly pointing to a middle section as she was already making her way down the aisle with the advantage of picking the seat. Being too high up with Alison's impulsive choice, Emily jumps down a step, trying not to spill the drink as she dashes down the aisle and nearly crashes into Alison as the blonde grabs and pulls down a seat first. Alison glances up at a panting Emily looming over her with a victorious laughter, bringing her hands into her chest as she leans back into her chair.

"Okay…That was a mess." Emily breathes out as she pulls down the neighboring seat, dropping herself tiredly as she tries to collect herself. "All that and I didn't even spill the drink." she hands over the soda to Alison as she drops the candy in her lap, "Because I'm freaking awesome like that."

Alison side-eyes Emily with a small smirk as she grabs the straw out of her hand as well, "You're supposed to be the gold medal athlete. Why are you so tired?"

"I'm more of a long distance person where I can control my timing and pace. That way I can last longer." Emily sighs out as she fixes herself from her clothing to fluffing out her hair, "That was a very spontaneous burst of energy I just let out."

"What, you can't handle random bursts of energy?" Alison raises an eyebrow.

Emily pulls out her phone from her back pocket, keeping her eyes down to herself as she pouts out her bottom lip, "…Depends."

"Depends on what?"

Emily stays silent, continuing to go through her phone as she leaves Alison eyes still searching the side of her face, hanging for answer. Alison eyebrow arches from curiosity to pinching together from confusion as she watches Emily seemingly ignore her question.

"Alright…" Emily exhales out as she places her phone out in front of her, fixing her hair once again, "Now, if you don't mind, a little theater selfie before our future presentation?" Still a bit puzzled from Emily's blatant change in conversation, Alison agrees in leans into Emily's shoulder to pose for the selfie. With her mouth slightly left hung open and Alison opting for a mere small grin with all the smiling taking place in her eyes, Emily takes the snapshot and looks down at it just as the lights began to dim with the movie soon to start. Satisfied with that she saw, Emily smiles to herself and leans over to show Alison before she placed her phone on vibrate, tucked it back into her pocket, placed her arm around Alison's shoulder as the first trailer began.

….

"Morning." George approaches his crowd of men standing outside the steps of the town's hall as he called them all together for an announcement.

"Morning." They all call back in unison. George stands on the top of wooden steps, leaning against a post as his sights change from his men to the blonde, young woman sitting prestigiously on top of her white horse off to the side. As she connects eye contact with him, he rubs his hands together as he gets ready to address his men.

"Ms. Pemberton's father owned the Vulcan lumber company in Colorado," he points out, having all eyes shift to her. She holds her chin high to remain poised in front of the staring men as George began to make his way down the steps onto the ground, "And she's equal to any man here. I expect you to follow her orders the same way you follow mine, Mr. Campbell, or Mr. Buchanan's."

As the movie played out in front of them with still not a single person yet to join them since it started, Emily has been softly caressing Alison's hand in the palm of her own throughout. Something the way her warm fingers delicately rub hers, massaging them, would sometimes pull Alison mentally out of the movie and focus on how Emily's holding her. It would send her shivers down her spine to the touch she would almost call foreign. Occasionally, Alison would find herself in the twilight zone with the Emily. She would have to look at her, touch her, to make sure she was really there and not some sick joke her mind has made up from being so isolated. Then the reality would hit: Yes, this is real.

Someone actually wants you.

Someone actually cares for you.

Someone in this world actually needs you in their life.

With her senses kicking up, Emily turns her head to the side to glance at Alison who had already been staring at her for a few seconds. Emily raises her eyebrows with a smile as a reception but the grin doesn't last on her face when she notices that Alison isn't smiling back. Her attentive eyes, the stillness in her face, the contemplation playing on her lips, Alison wasn't displaying signs of happiness.

She's concentrated.

Emily's smile fades as she gets lost in Alison's gaze, the flashing the colors reflecting from the movie screen onto her face showed made her eyes stand out more, making it very easily to become hypnotized. Soon, the loud movie in the background became mindless chatter as the brunette felt her heart start to race. With her hand still in Emily's grasp, Alison leans into Emily and gives her a small kiss on the lips ever so innocently that it made Emily completely tune out the movie and focus strictly on her. As they break away from each other, Emily's eyes drift up to Alison's just to see that Alison eyes were staring at her lips with the slow breaths she was taking. Before Emily could make her next move, Alison leans in again for the second time that had the once innocence altered into a more desired yet slow kiss. Emily slowly turns her body to Alison as she let Alison take full control of where she wanted where they stood to go. However, lasting only a few seconds, Alison stops herself from going any farther and pulls back, keeping her face close to Emily's with their lips just inches away from each other.

"Alison…" closing her eyes, Emily whispers as she rubs her thumb over the back of the blonde's hand, feeling her small inner-voice of self control starting to buzz in the back of her ear.

…

"Man, sometimes I hate working the morning shifts. Nobody is here." a young teenage boy sighs as he leans over the concessions counter with a coworker of his sweeping the floor around them.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" the other teen responds back with a bit of astonishment in his voice as he takes a short side glance at his peer, "That's the best part about the morning shift. You don't have to deal with many people."

"How many people are here anyway?"

"Like 13 total? Spread about in different movies: A good chunk in Insurgent, three in Tracers and two girls in that chick flick."

"What chick flick? Serena?" the first boy asks, getting a head nod from his coworker in return, "I don't understand the hype behind Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, honestly. How many movies are they gonna do together?"

The second boy sighs as he places the broom off to the side, looking far out through the doors to see the life of the city pass on by with no other customers wanting to give the theater their time of day, "Girls dig it, man. They like the romance and the forever love with the good looking guys, it's what sells." he leans his back against the wall as he crosses his arms out in front of him, "They're probably bawling their eyes out right now."

"You think so?"

"I can also guarantee they are. They're sitting in the seats, sniffling back tears as they watch the characters say some dry-ass I love you's to each other. Girls do that with every drama movie."

-Meanwhile-

Pulling up the moveable cup holder in-between them, Alison shoves her body up against Emily's as she wrapped her arms around her neck and kissed her deeply and feverishly. She moaned involuntarily arching her body towards the brunette's while Emily slid her hands inside Alison's black coat, rubbing and caressing her sides over her red blouse in turn enjoying the feel of her hands on the fabric. With no one in site and the movie playing out whatever scene it was on, the girls let their passion run excited as Emily gave her the most passionate kisses and she returned them with even more intensity. Alison glided her tongue gently but purposefully into Emily's mouth, catching the brunette's upon entrance as she closed onto her bottom lip. Emily's tongue was so soft and velvety, Alison simply couldn't get enough of it randomly enough with their location and timing. From the other end, as she squeezed her tight and pulled her closer, trying to keep up with her, Alison's brazen advance took Emily's breath away. There seemed to be this fire within Alison that made things from a six to a ten with the amount of energy and eagerness that she had. With all their kisses, –whether stolen or the more elaborate ones- they have never kissed like this before, and while they kissed, Emily's mind wanders off to what could have possibly set this bomb off in her to want to do what they're doing right then and there. No matter what it was, Emily was partially happy for it yet also partially nervous that they were going to get walked in on since they were in such a public place. If one thing was for certain, Emily was already fully aware of her aching sensation that was building from the tips of her fingers to her stomach and down her legs. With this known feeling, the self-control voice in her head only got louder and louder with touch, every moan, and every second passing by. Emily would never be one of those people to lose themselves in a dirty place like a theater but, if Alison kept working her the way she was, she's extremely lose to not recognizing herself. Her hands trickled down to the bottom of Alison's shirt, which were tucked into her jeans, and with on good tug, pulled the hem free out of the blonde's waistband, allowing her fingers to crawl all over Alison's bare skin as she continued to kiss her.

Self-control, Emily.

Self-control. Self-control. Self-control. Self-control. Self-control. Self-control. Self-control.

Alison took Emily's face into her two hands and held her head very still as she let Emily's tongue into her mouth and sealed her lips around it, slowly blowing her.

ABORT MISSION. ABORT MISSION.

With her eyes closed, Emily pulls back, drawing her tongue out of Alison's mouth as she firmly held the blonde's waist in her desperate and hungry grasp.

"What?" Alison pants as her eyes darted back and forth, looking at Emily's seemingly strained face as the brunette keep her head bowed off to the side, "Wh-what's wrong?" Emily tries to gather herself as she brings her eyes to Alison's. When they came up for air for the first time, Emily could see the radiance in Alison's face. She was absolutely glowing, and her breathing wasn't exactly calm either. Thinking quickly, Emily didn't want to make Alison feel bad because she stopped so she thinks of the next best thing to do.

"Shit." Emily hisses out as she dropped her hands off of the blonde and pushed her into her seat, swiftly leaning back into her seat as well as they both stare up at the movie they have no idea what is the plot is anymore yet alone the scene they're in.

"What's going on?" Alison worriedly whispers as she peeks at Emily from the corner of her eyes. Seeing that they went from making out to be shoved back into her seat, she knew it must have been for a valid reason.

"I thought I saw a light…." Emily lies through her heavy breathing as she pretended to discreetly look in the direction of Alison's side of the empty auditorium, "A flashlight from security walking in." Alison turns her head to the far right side of room, looking for any sign of human life as her chest heaved up and down in adrenaline.

While Emily had Alison temporary distracted, she felt her body sit unsteadily in her chair. She holds out her right hand in front of her and realizes she's shaking from the rush she had. From the extra boost of rush she almost granted herself if she didn't quickly put an end to their little moment. Just as Alison was about to turn back to face Emily, the brunette reaches for the drink on the left of her and shakes it. "I'm going to refill on this really quick. Hopefully I'll see if anyone else is lingering around."

"Okay." Alison agrees with her head nods, gazing at Emily with the face of innocence that she normally had on. Without a second wasted, Emily hops out of her seat with the drink in hand and fast paces it down the aisle, the stairs and into the long corridor where she continues walking until she is out of Alison's sight. The brunette leans her back against the wall and throws her head back, staring up at the small lights above her as she took long and deep breaths. "This temptation…I swear it's a test…" she sighs out. She knows once they get to those moments, how easily it is to get lost and how easily it is to let hands wonder but she needed to keep herself together. The last thing she needed was to get so turned on to the point she would be willing to risk everything and take Alison right there. Just how she's been tempted with Alison inside of her vehicle the night before and now at the movies, Emily had to understand the little voice in her head that usually screamed self-control at her. However, as she thought about last night and how seriously close she was to having backseat sex with Alison, her mind wonders off to Hanna and how she blew up on her the way she did when she came home after dropping Alison off. She still never fully grasped the reason why her friend came at her. Although the reason was for not answering the phone, she can't help but feel something else was in the mix of that anger. Luckily, it died down during the rest of the night and was almost nonexistent in the morning but she can't help but wonder what was going on. Before she knew it, Emily's inappropriate thoughts of Alison were buried under the thoughts of her friend's well-being. The brunette shakes her head as she looks down at the cup in her hand, "We got a medium drink." she scoffs to herself, "I can't get a refill on this."

…

Alison sits with her legs crosses at the ankles as her eyes tried to follow along with the movie when her brain on something completely far away. Every five seconds she was looking towards the entrance of the theater, waiting to see Emily and her flowy blue denim cardigan walk from behind the wall and into view with a refill of their drink and possibly extra snacks. Yet, the realization of them paying $20 for this movie hits Alison and forces her to focus on the screen in front of her and try to understand whatever is left of the movie. As Alison catches onto the dialogue begin spoken between the two main characters but it doesn't last long when her mind begins to drift off once again.

Where the hell did this surge of horniness come from…?

She slouches down into her seat, biting the inside of her bottom lip and quickly shoots another glance towards the corridor to find it as empty as it was the last twenty times she's checked.

"I've realized something and I'm not sure if it draws a parallel or anything…"

"Well, it's worth the try to ask, right? Go ahead. I'm all ears."

Alison nervously tugs on her finger as her eyes dance around the room, avoiding looking straight on to Dr. Elliott who patiently waited on Alison to speak. "I've noticed that….I don't have much of a….a sex drive?"

"Mhmm…" The psychiatrist nods, not even blinking at Alison's concern.

"And I'm not sure if it's the medication that's causing this but I've noticed that ever since I've been getting more intimate that I often loose interest quickly?" Alison grimaces slightly at the reality of her problem. It's always been a theory in her head but saying it out loud for the first time, it sounds like a real distress that could be a huge problem in the future. "I could be right in the middle of whatever I'm doing and then," the blonde snaps, "just like that I don't feel like it anymore. I don't feel like being touched or kissed or anything."

"Do you stop as soon as you lose interest?" Dr. Elliott questions as she jots down a few words onto her notes, which internally makes Alison anxious as to what she was writing down to put into her file.

"No…" Alison dolefully drop her eyes back down to her restless lands in her lap, "I keep going because I don't want to seem rude by just abruptly stopping and being like, "Sorry but can you get off me?" And Emily…" Alison sighs, shaking her head with a small hint of a chuckle, "She has a sex drive. Once she starts going…it's just a speeding locomotive heading towards a brick wall from that point on."

"In general, people with chronic depression can experience a loss of desire, take longer to orgasm, and simply find sex less enjoyable-"

"Oh, we're not having sex." Alison quickly corrected her psychiatrist with a wave of her hand, "I'm not sure if sex drive was the right word to describe it but yeah, we're just…taking things at a slow pace at the moment."

The redheaded doctor excuses herself with a small smile as she unclicks her pen and sets it down on top of her writing pad in her lap, "The whole process of sexual arousal starts with the ability to anticipate pleasure, which is lost with depression. But there are many physical factors can contribute to decreasing libido. As your body ages, there are social changes that can affect your mood and your self-esteem too."

"I just want to fix it before it becomes another issue, you know?" Alison exhales as she tilts her head to the side, glancing up at Dr. Elliott with weary and astray eyes, "I've just started getting a handle on things and I don't want to be jumping from medication to medication with each of them having at least one serious side effect."

"Well, let's see what we can do to help you out with that little problem." Dr. Elliott gives the blonde a reassuring and warm smile that prompts Alison to give a small closed-lipped smile in return.

"Hey."

Alison jumps out of her thoughts as she glances over to her left and sees Emily taking her seat back down next to her with their refilled cup of soda. "Hey." she breathed out happily to see the brunette after apparently a long time it took her to come back.

"The guy in the front allowed me to get a refill on our drink although we brought a medium." Emily raises her eyebrows up and down as she handed over the cold, full cup to Alison to put down in her cup-holder.

"Looks like you struck luck, huh?"

"I did, I did." Emily stares forward at movie screen, observing yet another scene that she has no idea is happening. Matter of a fact, she barely knows what the movie is about but from the corner of her peripheral vison, she notices Alison gazing at her, almost in the same way she was earlier but in a more tentative way. After she had taken the time to call herself down and get rid of her thoughts, she felt them flooding back in with just the mere notion of being this close to Alison again. "Uhm…you know, when I left, I actually did see a security guard walking around…" Emily leans into Alison and whispers, shielding her eyes away from the blonde's so she wouldn't know that she's lying or get warped into another weakening moment.

"Really?" Alison's eyes widen a bit as she genuinely asks with instant apprehension in her voice. Emily gives her a silent confirmation of a head nod which makes Alison slow herself down a bit. Even though she does have the adrenaline to keep up their engagement, the last thing she would want is to be seen, possibly publicly shamed and judged by the employees of the theater as if they were two hormonal teenagers. Alison leans back into her seat and faces forward, giving Emily the quick opportunity to sneak a small peek at her reaction of her fable. Seeing the look of nervousness and contemplation on the blonde's face makes Emily mentally groan. She reaches out and holds Alison's hand in her own as she props her elbow on her seat's armrest and rubs the bottom of her face, considering the thought if she would she attract too much attention if she was to just bash her face into the seat in front of her.

…..

"I don't know about you….but that movie suuuuuucked baaaaalls." Emily whines out to the heavens as she swings Alison's and her intertwined hands back and forth, finally walking out of the movie theater. "I felt like I was watching a foreign film like I had no idea what the hell was going on 98% of the time."

Alison nods her head in agreement as they walked down the steps of the establishment and onto the public sidewalk, going nowhere particular, "I'm sorry that we wasted money on that. I should have looked at reviews prior to buying tickets-"

"Oh nonono!" Emily quickly stops Alison from going on one of her apologizing trips as she turned her head to face her, "I enjoyed myself, don't you worry about that." She brings their folded hands up to her face and kisses the back of Alison's hand, causing her to let out a nearly blushing smile. They continue their path down the street, approaching the crosswalk on red when the thought just dawned on Alison that they were walking towards a crosswalk on red.

"Soooo. Since you insisted that we didn't bring our cars….what are we to do now?"

Emily takes in a gust amount of air into her lungs and breathes out just as easily as she looks up to the sky, squinting her eyes from the sun, "Live." she glances over at Alison who is shielding her eyes from the bright sun as well, "Enjoy the city, enjoy the nice warm and breezy weather. Enjoy life. That's what we're gonna do."

"And how are we gonna do that?"

"Well…" Emily ponders for a moment before her train of thought was interrupted by something she saw in the distance. She points Alison in the direction of her eyesight, a large city bus coming down the street, getting ready to pick up the bystanders waiting for its arrival, "It starts with us hopping on that bus over there. Come on!"

Quite a few things we learned this chapter, eh? Somethings we learned we right in our faces, somethings were more subtle and would take a little more brainpower to get a good understanding of it. Enjoyed it? Well, by-golly I hope you did!

Can you sense something in the waters coming up?

Another thing: So one of my many failures in life was writing a short Emison Christmas fic. Have you seen it?! No….Yes?! Well, see…whathadhappenedwas….my plans were to be done and over with that fic before New Years but of course, when you want to do something, life knows exactly how to get in the way of your plans. So here we are a month later and I'm still adding to it. But hey! Any Emison is better than no Emison, right? So, if you're interested on something on the side from me, go ahead and skip to my other small fic called, "The Holiday Essence". It has one chapter right now but I'm going to be updating it very shortly!

Alison Wonderland Part 2 to be updated sooner than you think….

Review! Talk to me, babay!