Title: Our Poorly Kept Secret

Rating: K

Pairing: Aria / Ezra

Author's note: I've recently re-watched PLL and it rekindled my fangirl feelings for Ezria (yes, it's somewhat problematic, we all know, but I ship them anyway). As a result, here is my first PLL story. To anyone out there still reading Ezria fanfic, please enjoy and leave some love if you liked.

For the first time in five years, Aria found herself again on a hospital bed. She hadn't missed the fluorescent lights, the smell of antiseptic that clung to the nostrils, or the rampant unease that crawled over her skin and took hold of her heart like a parasite, making breathing itself a struggle.

Secrets started amassing not long after she arrived to town and resumed old patterns with her friends. Unlike other small towns, Rosewood had the uncanny ability of bringing the worst out of its residents and make them prisoners of their own actions, capturing them in a motif that repeated itself in the same pitch, over and over again without release. They all remained nothing but mice on a wheel. Ezra recognized this undeniable fact just as well as she did, it was spread all over his first published book and the irony was not lost on her. In retrospect, it seemed inevitable that all those secrets would catch up to her no matter how far away she ran.

Ezra had rushed to her side with a bag overflowing with distractions and that relentless optimism of his that has always been endearing and exasperating in equal measure. Since the moment he arrived, Aria yearned to slip into the worn cotton of the yellow shirt he brought, her favorite, and feel its softness against her skin once more. Instead, she chose to remain in the rough hospital gown to avoid obliterating the invisible wall that kept both of them safely apart.

With kind words and gummy bears, Ezra was able to ease some of the restless anxiety in her stomach. His instinct to protect her was as strong as ever, another evidence that they continued running to each other despite being acutely aware that same old road was paved with heartache. Even so, for better or worse, they seemed tethered to one another by a string that stretched over time, yet never broke.

There was a brief moment when his blue eyes filled with concern and the truth formed on the tip of her tongue, ready to be unleashed, but doing so meant dragging him into the darkness that surrounded her. Ezra had crawled out of a bottomless pit of misery himself not too long ago and she couldn't risk him being collateral damage again, because despite the passage of time, the tips of her fingers remembered the roughness of the scar on his otherwise smooth stomach, a result of the last time he got caught in her secrets. It had not been fair back then and was certainly not when they were no longer together, still the need to be comforted by him when everything else fell apart lurked inside after half a decade.

Aria wouldn't bear him being hurt again, so she lied about the circumstances of the accident instead, having turned lying into an art form for survival and mastering that particular skill to near perfection until he could no longer tell the difference, even when guilt sliced through her whenever she did.

The clock on the wall marked the progression of hours without sleep while she wished to succumb to unconsciousness and forget, if only for a while, that she was back in the same living nightmare.

Aria sighed quietly and focused on Ezra as he continued to valiantly read a fashion magazine, albeit with some effort. The content of the article was irrelevant, only the low cadence of his speech mattered. All the while, she kept her eyes closed to control the waves of nausea caused by the awful combination of a piercing headache and the medication flowing through her veins. which barely soothed the pain in her arm whenever the skin spasmed painfully with its nerve ends flaring under the gauze bandages.

He grunted at the end of a sentence and his voice already sounded far, far away to her drowsy mind. When he eventually stopped, she turned to him with all the intention of remaining impassive, but her face betrayed her once their eyes met, her cheeks grew warm, her lips pressed into a smile and quickly enough she laughed at his joke. Her voice had an unfamiliar raspy quality and her sentences came out fractured as they talked to each other.

Ezra leaned back and stared at her, his eyes became light blue under the bright lights above and the corners of his mouth turned upwards despite the wrinkle that had settled between his eyebrows. It was then that his worry became evident again, she felt smaller and more vulnerable than usual, as if she could shrink and disappear altogether if not for his reassuring presence.

Aria opened her mouth then hesitated, but eventually a sliver of truth slipped out. "Wasn't true what you said earlier, about the writing. I have creative baggage too, wanting to make you proud."

She studied his face for a while, the way it transformed from confusion to understanding before he sprang forward, bridging the gap between them and taking her hand in his larger ones without hesitation.

"Aria," he gasped her name as if surprised by her sincerity, "I've always been proud of you, from the first essay you dropped on my desk to the very last chapter on our book. Your written voice is unique and never ceases to amaze me. I can't wait to see what you write next on your own. Whatever it is, it's going to be brilliant."

Her vision blurred with tears again and she blinked them away.

"It's been so wonderful to write with you." She continued, lacking inhibition all of a sudden. "There is no judgement, no self-doubt, only a freedom that I never found with anyone else. It was easier than expressing my feelings for you out loud."

His body tensed at once, his hand tightened around hers and the thumb that was caressing her skin stopped moving entirely. "Have you been writing from your own feelings for me?"

Even though humor was absent from his question, Aria couldn't help but laugh. His shock amused her immensely, more than it should if it were not for the pain medication that momentarily affected her judgment. Not for the first time, she wondered how someone so brilliant at turning feelings into words could often be so oblivious to them.

"Of course, only I didn't realize it until halfway through. How could I have done it so easily otherwise?"

Ezra made a few attempts to articulate a response but nothing came out, which provoked a twisted sense of pride in her for rendering a New York Times Best-selling Author speechless.

"Don't look so surprised," Aria added, "it's just like you've been writing about Nicole all along."

He shifted his gaze towards their entwined hands and said quietly, "I'm not entirely sure about that anymore. The feelings are right, but the characters are not."

"What do you mean?" She asked followed by a yawn, the effort bringing tears of exhaustion to her eyes. Her eyelids grew heavy by the minute and she noticed that his face was starting to blur around the edges.

Ezra shook his head and brought her hand to his lips for a kiss. "Nothing," he eventually replied. "You should get some rest."

"Will you stay until I fall asleep?" Now that the pain in her arm had somewhat reduced, Aria rolled on her side, never letting go of his hand, and shifted under the blanket in search for a comfortable position.

"I'll be here for as long as you want me."

"In that case, you'll have to stay forever."

"Forever, then." Ezra whispered before she slipped into a dreamless sleep.