A/N: There is a severe shortage of JARIA fanfics. I love the ones that I've read, and it saddens me that more people haven't written about the pair. They had great chemistry, and it's too bad the writers made Ezria endgame. I felt like they shouldn't have ended up together once she left Rosewood. They could have been confidantes, but their relationship didn't seem like it was IT. Jason is so sweet to Aria and only wants the best for her, and I find it admirable and adorable that in season 7 he tells her that he can't imagine anyone better than her. He comforts her and tells her that Ezra loves her and wouldn't choose Nicole over her. He loves her, clearly, and just wants her to be happy even if it's not with him.
Disclaimer: No Copyright infringement intended. This is just how I wish PLL would have gone.
Jason kissed her. He looked her in the eye, told her he had feelings for her and then leaned in and kissed her. She felt her heart stop when their lips made contact. Aria was momentarily stunned by his forwardness, seeing as Jason was normally so reserved and shy. Although, it was just earlier in the day that he'd shown up to her house to talk about Mike and he'd grasped her shoulder affectionately. That caused her freak out and she all but kicked him in the back to get him out of her door. She felt bad when she'd done it, but he was confusing her. She was still with Ezra, and Jason was always the unattainable yet gorgeous older brother of her deceased best friend. He kept showing up recently and it was doing nothing to help her already muddled mind. Things with Ezra lately were strained, and she felt like they wouldn't ever get back to where they were. She was tired of hiding their relationship and his move to Hollis didn't change that. They were still hiding. She couldn't determine whether or not it was worth it to continue their relationship as of late. That was why she'd been avoiding him.
Now, with Jason looking at her awaiting her response to their kiss, she knows with absolute certainty that what she has with Ezra isn't meant to last. In fact, it never should have been. When he told her they shouldn't continue their relationship, she should have relented. They'd both given up so much to be together and she didn't have anything else to give. Otherwise, how could she kiss Jason?
Jason is her friend, and she's had a soft spot for him for years. His recent return to Rosewood stirred up old feelings she thought long buried. The way he looks at her makes her knees go weak and he's so vulnerable with her sometimes. In a town like Rosewood, vulnerability is a sign of weakness and they both know that. So, his vulnerability makes her feel special. He doesn't open up to anyone, and he stays away from people more often than not.
His interest in her has her insides aflutter and she can feel the heat rise to her cheeks under his scrutinous gaze. She smiles sheepishly, then bites her bottom lip as he looks at her. He smiles back and pulls her arms she has wrapped around her midsection to grasp her hands with his own.
"So, what do you think Ar?" he asks quietly, as his thumbs stroke the tops of her hands softly.
"I-I don't know. I like you Jason, but- "
"But what?" he steps back and releases his hold on her hands as if he'd been burned.
"I'm sort of involved with someone. I can't kiss you like that when I'm seeing someone else," she looks down in shame.
"Aria," he steps close to her again and tilts her chin up to look in her eyes, "I can't stop thinking about you. Ever since I got back into town and saw you with your friends you've been on my mind. Then you came and talked to me that day when you were looking for Mike and it just got worse. I'm sorry for the kiss, you know I wouldn't have kissed you if I'd known you were seeing someone. But I can't just sit back and act like I don't care about you, because I do."
Aria gasps at his admission. She isn't the only one who's been feeling this way. Her dreams about him have had her in a panic, and she's felt guilty since she's still with Ezra. But didn't she just admit to herself that she and Ezra weren't stable? With an internal sigh, she grasps Jason's forearm to pull it from her chin but doesn't release him.
"Jase, I care about you too. And I have to admit that you've been on my mind a lot lately. More than you should be considering that I'm with someone else. I've been unsure about my relationship lately and I don't want to hurt you either. Will you give me some time to think things over please?"
His face softens at her admission, and he nods.
"Sure, take all the time you need," Jason says, then wraps Aria in a comforting hug. She takes advantage of the moment and nuzzles her head into his neck, taking in his smell. It washes over her, and her nerves calm a bit.
"Thank you," she says, pulling away. Jason releases her wistfully and nods again before turning to his car and driving away.
Aria is left with her thoughts once more. Before she has time to mull things over, her phone chirps signaling an incoming text message.
I spy a little liar. How do you think Mr. Fitz will like your clandestine little liplock? Don't worry, I saved you the trouble of telling him yourself. Kisses (no pun intended) – A
Her phone chirps again with another message, it is a video of Aria and Jason's kiss.
Aria's heart squeezes painfully in her chest and her stomach drops. As if things couldn't get any worse, A had to swoop in and interfere in her life yet again.
She sends out an SOS to the girls and heads home to meet them.
Once she arrives, she greets her parents and sees them off to bed before going to her room to change into some pajamas.
Hanna, Spencer, and Emily arrive, and she fills them in on what happened with Jason, not realizing that Emily and Spencer share a look, and then about the messages she received from A. Hanna swipes her phone from her hands when she pulls up the video of she and Jason's kiss.
"Damn, Aria. That's some kiss," Hanna leers.
Aria can feel all the blood flowing to her cheeks, and she snatches her phone away from Hanna.
"Gimme that! I didn't tell you guys so you could torture me about it."
"Aria, what are you doing?" This time it's Spencer. "Aren't you still with Ezra? Why are you kissing Jason?"
Aria is in no mood to deal with Spencer's judgement at the moment. "Yes, I'm still with Ezra. But you guys know that we've been drifting lately. And I've been trying to get through it, but I don't think that things are going to get better."
Emily looks at Aria, "Look Aria, Spencer and I went and checked out Jason's shed. We found pictures of you sleeping. He turned the shed into a dark room, and he has a ton of pictures he's developing of you."
What? "Are you serious? How would he have taken those pictures?"
"He could have snuck into your house while you were sleeping, or they could be from when Ali was still alive, and we slept at her house. There's more you don't know," Spencer said with a sigh.
"Toby and I were going through Ian's things, and we looked through his yearbook. Jason, Ian, and Garrett were all part of this club called N.A.T. It's Latin and it means 'we see all'. We think the club was for the three of them to film people around town. Those pictures weren't all we found in the shed Aria, Jason had tons of cameras and surveillance equipment."
Aria can't believe what she's hearing. Jason is so sweet, and it is hard for her to believe that he'd do something so… creepy. Her thoughts are interrupted by her phone buzzing. The girls all look at her.
"It's Ezra. I can't talk to him right now. I'll talk to him tomorrow before school and try to explain it to him."
Emily nods, "Why aren't you more freaked out about what we just told you? You kissed Jason, and he's a creep that filmed us and other girls around town!"
"I am freaked out Em, I'm just trying to process everything, I guess. There's sort of a lot going on between Mike, Ezra, and now this. I'm going to talk to Jason at lunch tomorrow and see what he has to say."
"You can't talk to him about this Aria! He'll know that me and Emily are the ones that broke into his shed!" Spencer yells.
"I don't care. He won't do anything about it. Mike tried to break into his place before and he was cool about it. I just need answers and not theories."
After the girls leave, Aria lays down to go to sleep but tosses and turns for a while. Her mind is reeling with all of the new information she's learned and A sending Ezra that video just wrecked her heart. She wanted the chance to tell Ezra herself what happened. The next day is the college fair anyway, so Ezra will be at school, and she could talk to him there.
A night of fitful sleep and sexy dreams about Jason later and Aria is awake and ready to face the day. She plans on heading to school a bit early to catch Ezra while he is setting up for the fair so they can talk. Her outfit of choice is a black maxi dress with a light denim jacket and brown sandals. Once she puts the finishing touches on her look, she heads off to school to face her fate.
Ezra is in the cafeteria setting up the Hollis table with Jackie of all people. Great, just what I needed to deal with today, she thinks. He spots Aria heading in his direction and smiles. Why would he smile? He should hate me right now.
"Ms. Montgomery, what are you doing here so early?"
"I- uh- Well I was hoping to talk to you about something," she subtly glances to Jackie and back to Ezra.
He nods minutely, "Sure, come on," Ezra lets Jackie know that he will be back to help set up in a few minutes.
When they get to the empty hallway Aria begins, "Ezra, I am so sorry. I didn't mean for it to happen it just did. We've been drifting lately, and I've been so worried about us. And how I feel about him just sort of snuck up on me," she looks down.
Ezra is confused, "Wait, what? How you feel about who? What are you talking about?"
Her heart drops, "Um... Jason. I thought you knew that he and I- well we kissed last night. I was going to tell you on my own, but someone told me that they saw me and beat me to telling you. I guess I was wrong," she looks into his eyes, and she feels terrible. He looks as though she's slapped him.
"You kissed someone else? Wh- Why would you do that? I thought we were okay. That's why I moved to Hollis, so we could be together and so things could get better between us. And who the hell knows about us?"
"I didn't plan on kissing Jason, okay? But I have to question why it was so easy for me to let him kiss me instead of stopping him," she throws her hands in the air in exasperation. "I don't know who it was that sent me the message." Ezra huffs but moves on.
"I'm not sure what you want me to say to that Aria. I thought we were doing okay, but apparently the same can't be said for you. Who's Jason?"
"Jason DiLaurentis. He's Ali's older brother."
"Do you have feelings for him?"
"I'm not sure. I care about him, I know that."
Ezra nods, "Well I think that you should take some time to figure out what you want. I don't want to make you feel how I apparently have been recently," he looks to the floor.
Aria nods, "Okay, I guess we'll talk soon then?"
He shrugs, "Maybe, I guess if I don't hear from you then I'll know your answer."
Ezra turns and walks back toward the cafeteria just in time for the hallways to begin filling with students ready to start their school day.
As the college fair progresses, Aria sees Jason walk in and his eyes scan the room as though he's looking for someone. When his eyes land on hers a smile tugs at the corners of his lips and he approaches her. Aria's heart starts beating faster and she feels herself flush under his gaze. She realizes that he's making her nervous and mentally slaps herself for letting her mind wander to her dreams from last night.
"Hey," he says shyly.
"Hi Jason," Aria smiles up at him.
"So, how's the college fair going? Find any schools you're interested in?"
"Just a few. Most of the schools I'm interested in aren't around here, though."
Jason quirks his eyebrow, "Not interested in going to Hollis?"
"No, not really. There are too many bad memories attached to it. Family stuff. I don't want to be reminded of it every day; you know?"
Jason nods in acquiescence, "Believe me, I understand. I was hoping I could talk to you; do you have a minute?"
Aria smiles, "Sure, let's go sit in the courtyard."
When they find a table, they sit together on the same side and smile sheepishly at one another.
"So, Jase, what did you want to talk about?"
"I was wondering about Mike. How's he doing?"
"He's better than before. He's been seeing a therapist and they got him on some medication that is helping him. I think continuing counseling here at school will help him too." Aria playfully nudges him.
"I'm glad to hear you say that because I'll be continuing to counsel the students here. Mainly troubled teens like I was. It will make me feel good to help them and prevent them from going down the road I went."
Aria smiles at him in adoration. How could the girls think he's A? He's so sweet.
"I was hoping that I could ask you something actually."
His interest is piqued, "Yeah? What's up?"
"Well, Spencer was going through Ian's things, and she found his old yearbook. She said that she looked at your senior photo and it said you were part of something called the N.A.T. club. What is that?"
He looks annoyed but quickly schools his expression, "It was nothing. Just a stupid club that a few of us formed," he shrugs.
"Yeah? Well Spencer said that Garrett and Ian were also in the club, and we know that Ian liked to film people."
"Why does this feel like an interrogation?" Jason asks in irritation.
"It's not, I'm just wondering what the club was."
"Well, if you really want to know, it was just us three. Ian got really into it and went around filming people all around town. I was mainly into surveillance, but I didn't actively participate in it. I was always too high or drunk to do much of anything to tell you the truth," he looks ashamed.
"Why surveillance?" Aria asks curiously.
"I wanted to know what I was doing. Like I said, I was always drunk or high, so I was blacked out most of the time. The surveillance helped me piece things together if I left or did anything I couldn't remember."
Aria nods, "Thanks for telling me, and I'm sorry for sounding accusatory."
"That's okay. I'm just a little on edge. Someone broke into my shed last night, so I had to buy a padlock."
She lets out a long sigh, "Yeah, I know who broke into your shed. It was Spencer and Emily. They have been trying to figure out who killed Alison."
Jason pushes away from her a bit, "Your friends broke into my shed? Do they think I killed my sister?"
"That's one of their theories. But they told me that they found pictures of me in your shed. That you were using it as a dark room and all of the pictures you had hanging were of me sleeping."
He stands up now, angry. "So, you think I'm some creep taking pictures of you sleeping now?" he waves his hands in aggravation.
"I don't know what to think, really. I mean why did you have those pictures of me?"
Jason scoffs, "I found a roll of film when I was going through Ali's things. She is the one who took those pictures, I just developed them. I was going to frame them and give them to you as a gift."
"Oh," Aria says, not quite sure how to respond.
"Yeah, so if we're finished here, I have some place to be," Jason starts to walk away from her.
"Jason!"
He ignores her and leaves the school, while Aria feels like a jerk. She should know better than to act like Spencer. She pushed him too far with her questions and now he's pulling away from her. When she glances up, she realizes that Ezra witnessed their entire exchange and becomes uncomfortable, so she walks away.