Alison wakes up in a clean, white room. She has all these tubes attached to her and she doesn't feel well at all. She looks around but there's no one near so she calls a nurse to ask what happened to her.
"You mean you don't remember what happened to you?"
"I don't even remember what I had for breakfast... if I had breakfast."
"Ok hold on, let me page the doctor".
Twenty minutes later and Alison reveals she does not remember a thing. Barely even registers her own name. Thinks everything she's heard was just an elaborate story.
Paige is in a different room on life support. Her infection has gotten worse and she has been put in a completely sterilized room no one's allowed to enter until it heals. Spencer and Emily haven't left her waiting room, deadlocked in a competition of loyalty, as if that's going to help Paige determine who she's going to be with for the rest of her life.
Emily's mom has been watching the kids and Spencer's mom has been watching the women, bringing them food and sternly advising them to rest and recuperate.
They still don't know what really happened down there. Paige has been out this whole time and Alison has forgotten it. It seemed like a miracle when the girls were found the other day, on the side of the road, dressed in weird pajamas but Emily and Spencer didn't care, they were just glad that Paige was back. That she was home safe and sound. Until she wasn't. Until she was held for observation and until her fever incapacitated her, putting her in a state of deliriousness the doctors didn't know when she'd wake up from.
No one had any clue of what was going on, until Paige suddenly and abruptly reached lucidity.
In her haste to tell her story she rushed through her physical exam and spilled the beans on the kidnapping before constable Maple even got his writing pad out of his pocket. By the time the police began the manhunt the culprit was already gone and two armed guards were stationed outside Paige's room by the time Spencer and Emily were allowed to enter and got to hear her story.
It all started when they were trapped in the dungeon. Alison said some things that seemed to alarm Paige and slowly she began putting it all together. She wasn't receiving the same treatment as Alison was. Alison may have been covered in wounds, just like she was, but she never really acted like she was injured. When Paige limped, Alison would remember to limp as well but when she moved on her own she'd move more naturally... more fluently. Her theories were confirmed when Alison asked her to pass her a piece of fruit and she threw it at her, and Alison caught her with the arm she'd kept in a sling.
That's when everything changed. Alison's demeanour suddenly turned stony and she looked at Paige like she had just stolen her favorite toy.
"Didn't think you'd figure it out this soon. Heck, I didn't think you'd figure it out at all. How long have you known?" She asked, circling her like a vulture inspecting its prey.
"I've had my suspicions since pretty much the first night." Paige replied, doing her best to keep Alison in her line of sight.
"What gave it away?" Alison inquired, raising a brow in a condescending gesture of superiority.
"You never really seemed interested in getting away, only lessening the punishments... Almost like you were content to stay here forever. There were little hints here and there. Tiny imperfections in your act. The shampoo you use changed, and so did your clothes. I figured if 'A' was trying to recreate high school like Cece did with Em and the other girls, that she'd handpick your outfits from your high school closet, like mine. You've been wearing those ugly sweaters you started wearing when you got pregnant instead" Paige recounted on the fingers of her hands.
"It's not my fault those stupid yellow shirts don't fit me anymore!" Alison burst out.
"I didn't mean it that way!"
"Oh sure you didn't. Nobody ever means it 'that' way, do they? Everyone's too 'nice' to say I've gotten fat. Well, let's see you squeeze into your high-school Sharks jersey after squeezing out a couple of leeches you never wanted in the first place."
"Well, I don't exactly see myself having babies anytime soon."
"Then I guess I've pushed your schedule up."
"You didn't... no, you couldn't possibly have. Tell me you didn't!" Paige whimpered, realization dawning on her as she subconsciously wrapped her arms around her stomach.
"Why would I tell a lie like that when it'd be much more fun to tell the truth and watch you suffer. You're carrying Emily's baby."
"No!"
"Yes!"
"But how? Why?"
Alison smirked.
"It wasn't fair you know? That I got stuck with her because of those stupid babies. I was supposed to be the new and improved Alison who was all 'nice' and reformed so I couldn't just abort them, plus when Emily asked me to have them I figured she'd be forever indebted to me if I did and I wouldn't have to keep up that charade that I'm in love with her or whatever in order to get her to cater to my whims. I had it all figured out. The only thing I didn't count on was you. Who'd have thunk that Pigskin would have self esteem now and be too proud to stick around and help Emily raise another woman's bastard?"
"Wait, but if you didn't like her then why did you marry her?"
"You think I had a choice?" Alison shrieked. "After I tried practically whoring myself out to keep her from getting back together with you I got stuck pretending to be in love with her. I had to keep up the charade after you left to save face, otherwise I'd be forever known as the asshole who led Emily on and kicked her when she's down to get one over on her high school rival."
"How could you do this to her?"
"I would say 'easily' but the whole 'pretending to be gay' thing wasn't really a picnic. Ugh. You wouldn't know what it's like, you're a dyke through and through, but shoving your face in someone else's cunt? Ugh. That's why god invented men; so we don't have to put ourselves through that."
"I knew you were a magnificent liar but I never thought you could stoop this low."
"You think that's impressive? Wait 'till you hear the kicker! You've seen the twins, right? Emily's twins? Emily's blonde, blue-eyed, Caucasian, identical twins? Did you know that those sort of twins run in my family?"
"Oh no." Paige whimpered again.
"Oh yes." Alison rejoined. "After Archer went and got himself killed, I had nobody to pawn them off on. I wasn't gonna be some single mom at twenty four, changing diapers and living on government benefits. I stashed my money so that the babies couldn't touch it, and when you came back to town I was stalling something fierce because while I hated the pregnancy, it got Emily and the gals to treat me like an invalid and constantly give me the benefit of the doubt so there were some huge perks.. When you came back I was struggling because suddenly Emily lost all interest in catering to me. I could see it in her eyes, she suddenly had that spark in her eyes and a skip in her step. This wouldn't do. If Emily was happy with you there was nothing I could do to coerce her so I had to play the victim act and when that didn't work, I resorted to faking being in love with her, and when that didn't work either, because the idiot fell in love with you, I had the most brilliant idea..."
"I think I'm gonna be sick."
"It was so incredibly easy to convince her. She didn't even look at the pregnancy test results! I can't believe I spent three hours forging them for nothing! And then when she told you, oh boy, I was watching, you know? I'd never seen anybody look as broken. Really, I felt so proud of myself. That was quite the achievement. I could have never brought you to your knees like that by myself, but Emily has the destructive power of a thousand atom bombs. It was brilliant, really. And you left town so quickly because you were distracted by your broken heart, that you never stopped to think things through or wonder why on Earth A would be kind enough to warn us before we might have made a mistake." Alison finished in a mocking tone that made Paige want to squeeze her throat until her eyes popped out.
"You used her. All this time, you've been using her!" Paige cried out, righteously enraged. "SHE TRUSTED YOU AND YOU USED HER!"
"Careful now, you're yelling for two...or maybe even three, who knows? Emily certainly seems to think herself capable of bearing twins with her eggs, so..." Alison joked, completely unaffected by Paige. "Retract your claws. Hurting me would only hurt you more.
"Why?"
"Why? Why should everyone else get to be happy while I'm stuck in Rosewood with these brats? Look at me!" She said, grabbing Paige by the chin and forcing her to look her in the face. "See this? I was meant to be a star! I was supposed to get famous! Not waste away in some backward town raising some snotty nosed brats. I was meant to be respected and beloved. Admired. I was gonna make it big. But then life happened. I'm not gonna bore you with the details but rest assured, I wont be making the same mistakes again. You're gonna disappear and I'll have escaped the new A's clutches and arrive home a hero. Emily will be so relieved that nothing happened to me that I'll be able to squeeze the victimhood of being kidnapped for years! She'll wait on me on bended knee and take care of those little brats for me while I heroically share my story with the media, becoming America's sweetheart -I'm gonna insist on playing myself in the movie version of course- and I'll finally reach the level of fame that I deserve!" She gloated before picking a syringe she'd kept hidden in her sling. "Just stand still for a moment" she whispered as she advanced on Paige.
Suddenly, to both of their surprise, Paige's instincts kicked in and she reached out with her leg and kicked the syringe out of Alison's hand. Alison stood there and watched it go flying as Paige landed her foot and twisted her waist around, performing a second, harder kick, which landed square in the back of Alison's head, knocking her down. The rest was something out of a farce. She fell on the syringe, which broke and started pooling around her as she sprung up, her leg immediately becoming numb due to the effects of the chemical. She dragged it through the broken glass of the syringe, accidentally cutting herself, causing blood to mix in with the chemical. The traces of iron in her blood reacted with the chemical concoction and created a spark to fizzle out and the discarded sling to catch fire. The fire triggered the alarm and the sprinklers came on dousing Alison and causing her to slip and fall and hit her head, giving her a concussion.
The rest -as they say- is history. Paige fished the keys out of Alison's pockets and dragged her along with her to the main control room. From there she called the police and waited for them to arrive with Alison, by the side of the road, after taping Alison to a desk chair. The police managed to find them in record time, but by the time they got there, Paige's pneumonia had spiked. She tried telling the cops the truth as soon as she woke up but it was all to no avail. Alison disappeared the moment everyone got distracted with the news that Paige was waking up and in the time it took the police to take her statement, she was gone.
When Paige heard the news, she was paranoid that Alison would come back and finish what she started. She was the only witness and she'd have wanted her dead so she couldn't testify in court. If she eliminated her, she might have had a chance to sway a jury so she knew that Alison would be coming back for her.
