A/N: Please keep in mind I wrote this chapter before we found out who A was on the show. That said, I always knew with this story that I was going to expose A, with the involvement of the car accident. (Both of which were planned from the beginning.) At this point, my choice in who A is, rests solely on who I think A is at the moment. (March 18th). My opinion has shifted on this so much in the last few weeks, it's not even funny. BUT, I'm happy with my decision.

Chapter 28

You Can Have What's Left Of Me

Aria awoke the next morning as the sun streamed from the window and gleamed across her face. She winced at the brightness burning her eyes and turned her head to the side. Having been more than twelve hours since she'd last been given anything for pain, her head was throbbing. She pushed herself up on the bed and looked around the room. For as small as she and Ezra both were, squeezing into a twin hospital bed still proved a little difficult when they were both lying on their backs.

Sensing the shift in the bed, Ezra groaned and pulled his arm free from where it was resting around Aria's waist and brought his hands up to his face and rubbed his eyes. Aria stretched her arms over her head as she yawned.

"Time is it?" Ezra asked as he looked around the room.

Aria shrugged. "After seven." She reached up to the over-bed table where she'd placed her phone the night before and grabbed it. She tapped on the screen. She had missed calls and messages. She cleared the screen and stared at her display screen for a moment. It was a photo of she and Ezra in times square from their weekend in New York. Their heads were pressed together and Aria was leaning backwards a bit. They both were laughing. His arms were wrapped around her waist, and her hands were resting on his shoulders.

"It's seven fifteen," murmured as she finally let her eyes fall to the time. She settled her phone back on the table and turned on the bed so that her legs were hanging off of it. "My mom is going to freak if she shows up and I'm not down in my room."

"Or she might be logical and just assume you're up here with me."

Aria looked back at him and smiled. She laid back down on the bed facing towards the door and wrapped her arm over Ezra's as he wrapped it over her waist. "I don't want to go anywhere."

He chuckled and kissed the back of her head and then groaned, wincing as a wave of pain rushed through his entire body. "Can we just go back to sleep and wake up in our bed?"

"God I hope so," Ezra replied.

Aria sighed and closed her eyes. She turned her head and brought his hand up to her chest. She tilted her head down and kissed his knuckles. She still couldn't shake feeling like it was her fault that Ezra was hurt so badly. Regardless of the fact that she was injured as well, her guilt for how badly he was hurt was overwhelming.

"There you two are!"

Aria opened her eyes as the door opened. Ezra turned his head and rested his chin on the top of her head as Serena and Ella walked into the room. Both were carrying cups of coffee from Starbucks.

"Should've known better than to think you'd stay in your room," Ella said lightly. "The nurses had a field day last night when they couldn't find you."

"Did you tell them to look up here?" Aria asked.

Ella nodded. "I was told that they checked on the both of you and then just left you both to sleep."

"I just passed Dr. Logan on our way in here," Serena said. "She'll be bringing breakfast in for you in a bit. You think you can manage to eat something today?" She asked Ezra.

He hadn't really had anything since Monday, and while part of him was absolutely starving, his pain had yet to level out.

"I could give some toast a chance," he said.

Serena sat down in the chair next to the bed, and Aria pushed up off of it glumly.

"Dr. Hale said he'd like to do an MRI this morning to make sure all is well with your head, but after that he said that he sees no reason you can't be released this morning." Ella told Aria. Aria looked back at Ezra. He raised his eyebrows at her.

"They're springing you from this joint. Be excited! I'm still connected to all these tubes. I'm bored already." Ezra said.

"All hope is not lost!" Said a cheerful voice. Everyone looked towards the doorway. Dr. Logan walked in and smiled brightly at each of them. It made Aria wonder if the woman had already had more than one cup of coffee that morning. "Are we all family?"

"This is Aria," Serena said, pointing to her. "Ezra's girlfriend. And her mother."

Dr. Logan nodded. She turned back to Ezra. "I'd like to get a chest x-ray done, but with any luck, we should be able to pull the chest tube today and move you down to a regular room. I heard there was a bit of fuss last night too, so we're going to do about getting your pain medication adjusted today."

"Great," he said, though he was less than enthusiastic about it. "When can I get out of here? I'd rather not spend my birthday in a hospital bed."

Dr. Logan nodded, looking down at Ezra's chart. "I can't say anything about today, but if everything goes great in the next twenty-four hours, we'll see if we can't get you discharged tomorrow morning. And that's a big if. For now, lets just see how we're doing with your lungs. I'll be back in a few minutes."

She turned and walked out of the room, and Aria pushed herself up from the bed. She leaned over and pecked Ezra on the lips and then got off the bed.

"I'll go get a wheelchair," Ella said before walking out of the room.

Aria crossed her arms loosely across her body and looked from Serena to Ezra. "What're you going to do if you get released?"

Ezra looked over at Serena.

"I've got to get back to New York at least for a few days. I'd like to put in for FMLA, but these last few days I've just been calling in sick." Serena said. "I'd like for you to come home for a few weeks. I doubt you're going to be allowed to just return to daily activities right away, and you're both too injured to take care of each other."

"I've got work-"

"That someone else can get taken care of," Serena said, cutting Ezra off. "We'll talk more about it later. Nothing has to be decided right this minute."

The conversation was dropped as Ella and Dr. Logan reentered the room a moment later. An orderly followed them in and walked over to Ezra's bed. Aria settled in the wheelchair and a few moments later, she was being pushed down the hall towards the elevators. While they waited, she could hear the chatter of other patients and movement of other beds. Distantly, she could hear Ezra headed her way.

The elevator eventually chimed and the doors opened up. Ella pushed Aria inside the shaft and then pressed the button for the floor below them. The doors pulled shut and they made their way down to the medical floor. They opened up again and Ella pushed Aria out of the elevator and down to her room.

Time passed swiftly for a while after that as Aria was taken down to radiology. She had to wait behind Ezra for an MRI, and then once the scan was done, she was taken back to her room and given breakfast while she waited for Dr. Hale to return with the scans.

A short while later, he walked in the room, and gave the good news that Aria was safe to be released. He prescribed her pain reliever for her concussion with the intention that if she was still having bad headaches after a few days to return to the hospital, and to make a follow-up appointment with her doctor to have her myriad of stitches removed. He set off to draw up her discharge papers, and then with Ella's help, Aria changed into a pair of loose black sweatpants and a loose maroon tank top.

"I'd like to go to school," Aria said as she slipped her feet into her black low-top converse shoes.

"Aria," Ella said. "You shouldn't be doing anything that could stress your brain. You heard Dr. Hale-"

"So if I can't remember the answer to something or I don't know it, I'll skip it," she said. "C'mon, mom. I don't want to spend the summer retaking classes that I didn't pass because someone stripped the brakes on Ezra's car. That's not fair."

Ella nodded. "You're right, it's not." She sighed and shook her head at Aria. "Let's just get you home first."

"I promise I won't do anything else," Aria insisted. "I just want to be finished like everyone else."

Dr. Hale returned to the room a few minutes later, pushing their conversation to the back burner. He delivered Aria's discharge papers to Ella and handed over the prescription before they were led out of the hospital with Aria in a wheelchair.

Ella drove Aria back to her apartment and then followed her inside, carrying Aria's bag. Aria stared around the apartment as she stood in the sitting room, feeling disconnected from it all in a way. So much had shifted in just three days.

"We understand if you choose to stay here, but your father and I talked last night, and we'd like if you would come home at least until Ezra is released from the hospital, so we can make sure you're alright." Ella said.

Aria couldn't disagree with the offer. She didn't really want to spend the next few days alone, whether she'd be sleeping through most of it or not. At least if she was at home with her parents, she'd have people around.

"Alright," she murmured.

She and Ella walked into the bedroom and she pulled some clothing out that she'd be comfortable in for the next few days, and then Aria snatched Ezra's pillow from his side of the bed and let her mother lead her back out of the apartment. She made sure to grab her school bag and her keys. She had no clue how her or Ezra's things had been returned to the apartment, but she didn't let it fester on her brain. As they were pulling out of the parking space in front of the apartment, Aria looked over at her mother.

"Where's my car?"

Ella looked over at her for a moment and then looked back to the road. Aria had her hand wrapped tightly around her seatbelt, and every few seconds, she gave it a good tug to make sure it was in fact buckled.

"Your friends mentioned that it wouldn't start the other day. And, after everything that happened with the accident, your father and I wanted to make sure your car hadn't been tampered with, so we had it taken over to the shop to make sure it was working. They fixed it, and it's back at the house right now."

Aria furrowed her brow. It hurt her head, but she was honestly curious. "So you knew I'd agree to come h- stay with you?"

"We hoped," Ella said with a corrective tone.

They pulled up in front of the high school a few moments later and Aria looked over at her mother, her mouth slightly agape.

"I'm going to talk with the principal and see if we can't get you to do some of your finals today in the office, away from all the commotion. If everything goes alright today, then we'll see about you coming in tomorrow and taking the rest."

Aria didn't say anything. She was just grateful for the chance. She followed Ella into the school and kept her hopes up. Within a half-hour, she was settled in a room inside the office and given her English final, with a ninety minute time limit. It involved an essay, but she managed to cover most of the questions with the first half hour. Afterwards, she completed the essay portion, and then headed out into the office and handed over the papers to her mother. In turn, she was given her history final with the same instructions.

The next few hours passed in the same fashion as Aria did her history final and then her science final. Afterwards, she and Ella headed back to the Montgomery home. Aria was exhausted and desperate just to get some rest. Ella was also determined to find a way for Aria to either have help or get around taking her geometry final. She was worried all the work would be too taxing for Aria to do, and she knew that there was no way she was going to be able to convince Aria to put off taking the test until a later date. Aria wanted to be off for the summer just like everyone else without having to worry about returning to school.

When they pulled up to the house, Aria left everything but the pillow in the car, and then made a straight shot for her bedroom. She didn't know if her father or if Mike were home, and she didn't really care to find out. She wasted no time making her way up to her room and crawling into her bed. She turned her phone down to silent and snuggled under the blankets before closing her eyes and shutting out the world

-
Why do I always use the words that cut the deepest
When I know how much it hurts you
-

She awoke later in the day to find the sun had already set. Her head was pounding again and her stomach was growling. Aria pushed up off of her bed and tossed the blankets back. She grabbed her phone from the nightstand and brought the screen up. She had several new messages. She opened them up.

"Hanna said she saw you at school?"
-Spencer

"Can we see you? We need to talk about
You know who."
-Emily

"Did I see you at school? We need
to talk."
-Hanna

She closed the messages and then sent a message to them that she'd just woke up, and that she'd find a way to meet up with them. She got out of her bed and walked across the room. Her mother must've brought her bags up to the room at some point, as they were lying on her floor. Aria pulled out a pair of cotton shorts and a fresh tank top. Both were different shades of blue. She also grabbed one of Ezra's sweatshirts that she'd stolen and pulled it on. It was a black sweater with white lettering on the back of some band that he liked.

She grabbed her shoes and purse and then walked out of her room and headed down the stairs. She made her way into the kitchen. Ella and Byron were settled at the table, talking. Aria rubbed her eyes as she walked into the room and looked up at them.

"Aria," Byron said, slightly surprised. "It's good to see you awake."

Aria nodded at him. She wasn't quite sure what to say to him. The last thing he'd said to her was that they shouldn't have tried to fix anything in the first place.

Ella pushed up from the table and walked over to the counter near the sink. "Would you like something to eat? We ordered pizza a while ago."

Aria shrugged. "Can I go out for a little while? I haven't seen any of my friends since everything happened."

Aria knew that was a lie. She'd seen Spencer the day before, but that hadn't been a proper conversation. And even so, she needed to see her friends and find out what they knew about 'A', and how 'A' had been involved in the accident.

"Are you sure you're alright to drive?" Ella asked cautiously.

Aria nodded. "It'll just be a few hours, I swear," she said. "I'm just going to meet up with them at the grill. Maybe stop by the hospital on my way back."

Ella nodded. "Okay. I picked up your prescription. Are you in need of pain meds?"

Aria nodded. Ella gathered Aria the proper dosage and then got her a glass of water and then walked over to the table and settled them in front of Aria. She and Byron exchanged a look and then she turned and walked out of the room while muttering something about checking on Mike. Aria took the medication and then sat down and settled one shoe on the floor while she started to pull on the other.

"Can we speak for a few minutes?" Byron asked Aria.

Aria looked up at him for a brief second and then down back at her shoe. "I guess."

"Aria…" He paused for a moment. "What I said at Hollis wasn't right. It wasn't fair. I should've given you a chance to speak. Your mother and I both should have. We should've realized sooner just how close we were to losing you. I honestly wish we had because then maybe your accident wouldn't have happened."

"You do knowthat I'm not going to break up with Ezra, right?" She asked. "And that just because I'm here for tonight doesn't mean I'm staying?"

Byron nodded. "I understand we have a slow climb in front of us in order to get back what we had as a family. I hope that you'll give your mother and I that chance."

Aria pulled her laces on her shoe and tied them. She looked up at Byron as she grabbed her other shoe and pulled it on. "Lets just see how we do today. One day at a time, right? Ezra's my family now too."

Byron nodded again. Aria finished lacing up her shoes and then stood up straight. She adjusted her clothing and grabbed her purse and then walked over to the side of the fridge where the keys were hanging on hooks, and grabbed hers. She walked across the room and headed out of the kitchen.

"Aria?"

She turned around and looked back at her father as she headed for the door. "Yeah?"

"I love you."

A small smile attempted to pull at the corners of her mouth. "I love you too, dad."

With that, she turned and walked to the door and then headed out of the house. Her car was parked a few feet away from the driveway, on the street. She walked over to it and got into the drivers seat and settled her bag in the passenger seat. She started the car and pulled her seatbelt on, and then just sat there for a moment. She pulled on the belt to make sure it was secure and then shifted the car into drive. The street was empty.

She pressed her foot lightly on the gas and then quickly shifted her foot to the brake. The car stopped and she lurched forward slightly at the sudden stop. She knew that her fear wasn't going to go away right away. She knew it would take time to get used to driving a car without fearing that something was going to go wrong, but it comforted her to know that, at least for the moment, she could make sure it didn't stop.

She made her way over to the grill as she'd told her parents and ordered herself a burrito, but then drove back to her and Ezra's apartment, where she'd really told her friends to meet her. If there was any chance that A was around, then she didn't want to risk getting hurt again.

She got out of her car once she'd pulled up outside the apartment and grabbed her food and her purse from the passenger seat and then got out of the car. Hanna, Emily, and Spencer were all getting out of Spencer's car. Aria walked over to the door and unlocked it, and then the four of them walked into the house. Aria walked over to the sitting room and placed her bags on the coffee table and then walked into the kitchen and got herself a glass of water. Spencer, Hanna, and Emily followed after her and each got themselves a glass as well, and then they walked back to the sitting room. Aria sat down on the chair while Spencer and Hanna sat down on the couch. Emily opted for the floor.

"So what's going on with A?" Aria finally asked as she unwrapped her burrito.

"We went to the cops like we said we wanted to," Hanna started. She looked over at Emily. Emily looked back at Spencer and then to Aria. "We know who A is."

"How?" Aria exclaimed. She suddenly was too anxious to eat, and put her burrito back into her bag. She crossed one leg over the other and gripped the arms of the chair she was in. "Who is it?"

"When we went to the cops, we ran into Garrett," Spencer said. "I know we all agreed that we can't trust him because of Jenna, but he said that Jackie was saying things about having help. That she wasn't the person who came up with the idea to strip the brakes. She just did it."

"So who did it!" Aria said louder. She wanted to know who had been torturing her for almost nine months. She wanted to know who had tried to kill all of them at least once.

"Maya." Emily said it simply. It was as if she had entirely disconnected herself from what she was saying. And she had to, Aria supposed. How else could she possibly be okay with saying it out loud.

"You're sure?" Aria said.

The girls nodded.

"I asked to see her," Spencer said. "As a visitor. I made her think that I didn't believe she did it, and asked her who it was that she was talking to. She told me what Maya looked like, and then said she had the phone number of the person she'd been talking with since she tried to break you and Ezra up. Garrett got the phone for me and I wrote down all her recent calls, and then we went through the list. We knew it wasn't Ezra, and the only other number that was in common with ours, and fit her description was Maya."

Aria sunk back in her chair. "Wow." She took several deep breaths and let the information sink in. She looked up at Emily. "Em, are you okay?"

Emily shrugged. "I'm not really anything right now. I don't know if I should be angry or sad."

"We all turned our phones over to the police," Hanna said. She didn't seem happy about it. "And we gave up everything else we have on A. We were hoping you'd do the same."

Aria nodded. "I'll take everything I have in tomorrow." She paused for a moment, still trying to digest everything. She didn't understand how Maya knew everything she did about them, or why she had hurt all of them in the ways she had. She hadn't known any of them. None of this made any sense. "Does anyone know where Maya is?"

The other three girls shrugged.

They all sat there for a while longer, but eventually they all headed their separate ways. They all needed sleep for the last day of finals, and Aria wanted to go over to the hospital before she went home. She packed up a few more things from the apartment and then grabbed her food and her purse before she headed out.

She drove over to the hospital and made sure her car was locked with her things in her trunk before she headed up into the hospital. She made sure to text Adriana to find out what room Ezra was in, and then took the elevator up to the medical floor. When she stepped off the elevator, a smile spread across her face. Ezra and Adriana were headed her way. He was dressed in a pair of black sweatpants and a t-shirt.

"Look, no tubes," he joked as she walked up to them.

Aria leaned up and kissed his cheek. "Are you alright?"

Ezra nodded. "Just feeling restless. We decided we'd take a walk. How was your day?"

Aria shrugged, wrapping her arm across his back as they turned around. Ezra wrapped his arm around her while his other hand was wrapped around his IV pole. Adriana was standing on his other side, ready to move if he got dizzy.

"Standard? I got some clothes and then went over to school and took three of my finals as best I could. I think I passed all of them pretty well. After that I went to my parents place and slept for like six hours."

"You're okay over there?" Ezra nodded.

Aria nodded. "It's just for a few days. We'll see what happens afterwards."

They walked slowly back to Ezra's room, which was only a few doors down from the room Aria had been in until that morning. Adriana dismissed herself for the night and then headed out of the hospital, leaving Aria and Ezra in his room alone. His over-bed tray still had dinner on it.

Ezra laid down on his bed, and then Aria joined him, curling up against his side as Ezra flipped through the channels on the TV. There were very few channels that actually had anything interesting on, so eventually they settled on watching the news. Aria paid little attention to it as she rested with her hand underneath Ezra's chest. It was a security she needed, to be able to have skin on skin contact, and feel his heart beating. Part of her hand rested over his chest where he had stitches from the chest tube being placed. It was something she was so used to being able to do at home, and yet being here and having seen him be so terribly injured made her appreciate it in ways she hadn't before.

She looked up when she heard something about their car accident. There was very little said, beyond the fact that one person had been released and that the other was out of the ICU. Aria couldn't help but be grateful that they weren't giving names. She didn't need the trouble from other students from school. Even if the year was over, people still had a way of talking about you.

"Where's your mom," Aria asked after a while.

"Back in New York," Ezra murmured. He turned the volume down on the TV and then shifted on the bed to look at her. "She wants Adriana and I up there as soon as Adriana finishes her finals. Her last one is on Monday."

Aria nodded, pursing her lips.

"You know you're welcome to come with me," he told her. "My mother adores you."

She nodded, giving him a small smile. She curled up against his chest, and closed her eyes as he wrapped his arms around her and ran his left hand up and down her back.

"How do your parents feel about the current situation?" He asked her.

Aria shrugged, keeping her face buried in his chest. "Like I do. That we should take things one day at a time and not make any solid decisions at the moment. I think they want me to move back home now, though. I hate it."

"Why?" Ezra chuckled softly. "Because you thought you knew everything there was to know about the current situation, and it turns out you're wrong?"

Aria huffed. "It's not fair. After everything that's happened, all of a sudden they've decided to care again. My dad told me he loved me tonight. He hasn't said that in weeks. The last time I spoke to him, he was writing me off."

Ezra kissed her head. "It's going to take time. Things won't change over night. But maybe you owe it to yourself to give it a chance to work itself out. You'll never know until you try, and like I said last night, you don't want that what if hanging over your head. If it doesn't work out, you know you've got somewhere to go."

Aria looked up at him with a pout on her lips. "And what if it does?"

Ezra smiled. "Then it's just eleven months until your eighteenth birthday. And only a year away from being free from all of this. But if there's a way that your parents and I can coexist so that everyone is at least satisfied, then you deserve to have it that way. I don't like having you feel like its one or the other."

Aria sighed and wrapped her arms tightly around Ezra's back, resting her head against his chest again so she could hear his heartbeat. She closed her eyes and let the thumping of his heart comfort her. They laid in silence for a while and her thoughts raced over what could happen in the coming weeks. All of it seemed like too much to handle either way. She didn't want to lose her parents, but she didn't want to lose Ezra either. She wasn't sure how she could handle not living with him anymore if things went that way, but she also wasn't sure that she didn't want to be able to go home too.

Eventually, her body started to become too exhausted to give in to the thought processes going on in her head, and she knew that it was time to go. She slowly pushed herself up off the bed and stretched, yawning. Ezra reached his broken hand out to her and grabbed her hand. Aria leaned down and kissed him chastely on the lips and then grabbed her keys off the over-bed table. She pulled her phone from her pocket. It buzzed in her hand. She pressed the green button on the screen.

"Spencer? What's up?"

She listened to her speak, and within a minute, the conversation was over. She tucked her phone back into her pocket and stood there, numb.

Ezra leaned up on the bed. "Aria? What's wrong?"

She shook her head, looking him in the eyes. "I don't….A is dead."

His eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped. "A as in the person who's been stalking you and your friends for months?"

Aria nodded. She knew she couldn't keep it from him, so she explained the conversation she'd had with her friends at the apartment, and answered Ezra's questions as best she could.

"So how do you know she's dead?" He asked.

Aria shook her head. "Emily called her and started asking questions. They were in the park. I guess she somehow stole Spencer's dad's gun, and shot herself in the head, right in front of Emily."

"Wow. That's harsh."

Aria nodded. She wasn't quite sure how to swallow the information herself. A part of her wasn't quite sure she believed it. She was waiting for her phone to ring and for A to send her a message about tying up loose ends. But the message never came.

Aria sighed after a few minutes and leaned over to kiss Ezra once more. "I've got to go. Call me if you get released tomorrow? Otherwise I'll see you after my finals are done."

Ezra nodded. "Be safe. Drive safe."

Aria nodded. She turned and walked out of the room. As she headed towards the elevators, she was already calling Emily's cell. It took a while, but eventually the line clicked over, and she could tell that Emily was upset. She told Aria that Hanna and Spencer were already with her.

"Can you come over?" Spencer asked when she'd taken the phone from Emily.

Aria stepped out of the elevator and headed towards the exit. "No. My parents would flip out if I left the first night I'm back in their house, even if it istemporary. Can you guys come stay by me?"

The other end of the line was quiet for a moment. Aria rested her phone on her shoulder as she grabbed her things from her trunk and placed them in her passenger seat. She checked the back seat out of habit, and then rounded the car and got into the drivers seat and started the car. She pulled on her seatbelt, checked that it was secure, and then did the same thing with her brakes. She put the car back into park as Spencer finally spoke again.

"We'll be there in a little bit."

The line went dead, and Aria placed her phone in her purse. She drove back home and made her way into the house. Ella was coming out of the kitchen when she walked in.

"How's Ezra?" She asked.

Aria shrugged. "He's alright. Spencer, Hanna and Emily are coming over."

Ella looked ready to launch into a lecture, but Aria was quick to explain what had happened with Maya. Ella seemed to have more understanding after that, and then told her to be sure that they were quiet. Aria waited until the girls had shown up and were in the house before she headed up to her room. She and Spencer agreed to share her bed while Hanna and Emily opted for the floor.

"I keep waiting for my phone to ring," Hanna said as she got situated underneath the blanket she and Emily were sharing.

The other girls nodded in agreement. There was very little they could say, and Emily was too shaken to say much.

"Are you sure there's nothing I can get you?" Aria kept asking. Emily kept insisting that she was alright. As the clock ticked towards midnight, Aria knew she needed to drop the subject so that they could all get some sleep. They all had tests to pass in the morning, and she didn't want to be the cause of their failure. With goodnights passed around the room, Aria switched of the lamp next to her bed and sunk down on it, holding Ezra's pillow tightly against her chest. She buried her face in it, breathing in his scent. It wasn't the same, but it would do. The last thing she remembered before falling asleep was the silence.