***AN: so I am writing and posting for FanFiction and Wattpad (linadanielle13 for both) and I'd like to say thank all of you for reading and leaving your thoughts, and yes I realize I cannot please everyone and I'm sorry if you once liked this story but are no longer a fan…sad to see you go. And for those fans who are still with me, thank you!
Emily's POV
I know something is wrong. And it's not that fact that my speech is difficult right now or the clock on the TV is about five minutes fast…I just know, I can feel like- like- okay, maybe I don't know but something is wrong. Something is missing. Not just my memory, or the spoon for my pudding, not just Alison, something is- is just not right. It's almost palpable, like it's in the air around me.
It doesn't help much that my mind is free since Ezra and Toby left after Dr. P came in to get them. He had a weird face about him, he looked uneasy, and I opened my mouth to call to him but remembered how long it took to ask him for some more water earlier – I'm still thirsty – so it was pointless to try to get something out of him that wasn't meant to be shared with me anyways. Any time I tried to say something meaningful, it ended in a series of coughs and grunts. Like a chain reaction to one simple gesture people did everyday all the time, a whole ripple effect of chaos started, and all I wanted to say was 'water.'
The boys have been gone for a few hours and I feel an unease wash over me, I barely 'met' them, yet I can tell that they loved my friends, Spencer and Aria, but I feel guilty that I can't remember meeting Toby for the first time or the help Ezra offered me when he was still a teacher at…Rosewood High? Yeah, that was the high school we all went to.
I'm frustrated that I'm bed ridden, that I can't form a coherent sentence without stumbling over my words, frustrated that my brain is trying to search through my head and find memories for me to remember, things I should know. My mind is crowded with guesses of who I am, who my parents were, why I can't feel like I miss them even though I know I should, who my friends are, was I closer to one of them than the others, what did I like to do when I had free time? I couldn't make something up and give in to a false dream, and hope that I could come up with something that would suddenly pop out as the truth and I could hold on to. I was interviewing myself and no matter where my mind searched, it had no answers. So the only thing I could hold on to right now were Alison's words before she left:
"Em, I – I love you. And not as just a friend, I love you more than that, and before all of this you said you loved me too. And we, we were together, as a couple, you and me. And I can't imagine living without you I love you so much, but this is close to it. Living while watching you like this, this is what I deserve for being so cruel to you before, for being such a bad person. But none of this is your fault. I love you and you loved me and because you loved me, you're sitting in this bed."
I should've 'woken' up and stopped her, I should've asked her more questions: who was –A, what happened before I woke up? I should've asked her to stay with me, but I didn't, I thought that maybe that was easiest, but sitting here, alive but the furthest from living my life, whatever that is or was, is harder, I know that for sure.
I just wish, the pounding in my head would stop, I wish Alison told me more, I wish I knew where she was, I wish she would just call…not that I would know what to say, I just want to know she's okay.
I didn't realize it before but now our matching jewelry made sense: her locket, which she said had our picture in it and the mini Eiffel Tower charm and my matching bracelet. I can't believe the time that I had it I hadn't even seen it, I didn't closely at any part of it, I just knew it was there and I was content with it.
It actually made me smile though; Ali managed to tell me the story of how we got them, the truth, she said. Apparently I was so impatient and couldn't wait until our anniversary and when I gave her hers to open, she got up, ran upstairs and came back with a similar box, claiming that she had to give me mine too. The way she said we opened them together and laughed, I wished I remembered getting the gift and opening mine…I wished I had had the courage to look at her earlier and see her face. But I pretended to sleep and smiled to myself.
The bracelet feels warm against my skin, odd for gold jewelry, but as I pay attention to the 'A+E' engraved in tiny lettering on the heart charm, I tell myself it's the even smaller quote bordering the edges on the other side that makes me warm.
"I could have all the time in the world, but all it would take to fall in love with you is one day."
'One day.' So it seemed to be our thing.
No One's POV
So Emily adjusted the bracelet on her wrist and rubbed at her pinky that Alison had wrapped hers around, whispering to herself, and secretly to Ali who was miles and miles away, "okay…one day. Don't break our promise."
x-x-x-x
Alison's POV
It took everything in me to not break down again, not over the phone after I told Ezra and Toby what I had found out, and I know it took everything they had left to not come here in the next few hours. It was silent at first, until Toby asked if I was sure, I could hear the tears in his voice, and the tremble in Ezra's when he asked if there was more…I didn't tell them what -A – Charles – had written after that. It was a relatively short phone call, each claiming they needed time to themselves which I understood.
There was a certain peace, as terrible as it is to admit, when I accepted that they were all gone, once I believed it, I didn't have to worry about their safety, I knew they found peace somewhere else, but knowing that they were alive, alive but held captive was worse. I knew air was in their lungs, that their hearts were beating, but that they were probably being tortured, hurt, played with, and that was worse: to know that somewhere they were wishing for someone to save them, for the pain to stop. Yeah, that was worse than knowing that in their death, nothing could hurt them again.
"Ali, I think we got something," Caleb's voice was hoarse; he sounded as tired as I felt, but his voice was what broke my train of thought that was leading me down a very dark tunnel.
I sat up from the toilet and slipped my phone into my back pocket, "I'll be right out."
I heard the shuffle of his feet back to the room and I wiped at my face as best as I could before walking and meeting him and Mona in her room.
"Alison, I think Caleb might've found how they were taken."
"Okay, that's great, let's see it then."
"That's not it." Caleb turned around and typed at the keyboard furiously, "Charles wasn't alone, I found out who helped him take the girls and Em's parents."
I looked at Mona curiously before she pointed to the computer Caleb was at. Nodding, I walked up behind Caleb and watched him pull up a paused screenshot of a security tape from the airport.
The screen was zoomed in on a dark figure, wearing a black hoodie, from the frame I could tell it was a man. Caleb zoomed in again and I could see that the figure was holding out a passport in his hand, I couldn't make out the pseudonym but I easily recognized the face.
"Wren?!"
x-x-x-x
No One's POV
"Ms. DiLaurentis, you do realize that what you're suggesting sounds a bit crazy right? Dr. Kingston has been in London for 3 years now, I don't see any reason he would have to be back let alone be helping –A take your family and friends, it just doesn't make sense." Detective Swan's voice could be heard through the groaning in Alison's head.
"Yes, I do realize how crazy it sounds, but I know what I saw and who I saw and I'm telling you it was him. Would it be so crazy for you law enforcement men open more than your logical eyes and ears and just open you damn mind?!"
"Ms. DiLaurentis, I understand how stressful this all must be, but as I told you before, the department does not condone, nor does it support you and your friends' actions. We want to help and we are doing everything we can to catch this –A but we can't help you if-"
"If we're out of state, I get it. You know what then maybe I'll stay here, you haven't done much for me there anyways besides make 'crazy' assumptions and implications about my involvement and then sit on your ass in the hospital's break room and play around with your little watch dogs, that follow you. If you can't help me fine, tell your boss to drop the case because it'll be out of California and Oregon's hands soon.
"You know I can't do that, we are the ones who filed the report, and most of the times in these special cases, we follow them-"
"Follow them? Follow them! You didn't follow this case Detective Swan," she spat, "I'm 1900 miles across the country and the only following you did was following the nurse's ass from her front desk and the hallway."
He cleared his throat, "you called me, remember, and I'm telling you plain and simple, there's nothing I or we as a department here can do for you if the evidence is not right in front of us, I don't even have the proper clearance to accompany you across the states and help Rosewood PD with this. Right now you'll just have to wait or find a way to get us to find all the evidence you have."
Alison shook her head, despite the fact that he couldn't see her. Alison would stay in Rosewood, after all, she hated why she was dragged all the way to California, she wanted to forget it and move on but now she had a completely different reason to go back.
"So there's nothing you can do about this? We're sending the pictures right now, but because we don't have the badge it doesn't count?" Her voice was softer and much quieter.
The detective was silent for a moment too long and Alison sighed, "listen, I know it's out of your 'jurisdiction' to give a damn when I'm way over here, doing what I'm doing, and it doesn't look like you'll be coming here anytime soon, but if you can just call Rosewood's PD and let them know that I have intel here that can help I'm sure they'd be more than willing to go over what we have and give us what we need without us having to break any rules."
"Break any rules? I'm sorry but you and your friends seem to already have broken a few privacy rules and when the airline finds out, I'm sure-"
"Fuck that airline; their stupid security didn't see that Wren's passport was a fake so they can be just as much to blame here."
"Alison, no one is blaming anyone for the disappearance of your friends and family."
"They're not disappeared, they're with –A and you know that and no one is doing anything to bring them back." Alison started to pace back and forth as the other end went quiet and before hanging up she said calmly into the phone, "I read your file Swan, I know how badly you wanted this case, you want to catch our –A to clear your name of the innocent man you sent to jail already. Well, if you don't help me, you can go back to the office as the local joke I know everyone in your profession sees you as. What a shame to your father's name that you just can't close a case."
And she hung up.
The amount of pressure she felt building in her forehead was enough to make her want to scream. She balled her fists and swung them towards her sides, clenching her teeth in sheer frustration. Meanwhile, Caleb and Mona were pounding away at the keys of their computers, looking at any facial recognition software that would place Wren in Rosewood.
Ali wracked her brain for how she could get the Police Department to listen to her. Everyone there only knew her as the infamous Alison DiLaurentis, high school Queen B who faked her own death, kidnapping, and who has caused more drama and scandal in her 19 years of living than all the years that Rosewood has ever seen. Her name and her word were useless, and as much as Rosewood wanted the reign of –A to end, anyone who ever got involved with Alison…well, they usually had fatal consequences.
Fatal or just plain bad. Even her own brother was tarnished by her. The year after high school, when the girls all thought –A somehow disappeared, Ali was contacted again. She never told anyone. She spent months tracking him down and when she came face to face, believed in all her heart that –A was none other than her brother Jason. Now anything she tells the police about –A now is put aside to "let the police do their job."
She also knew using Caleb or Mona wasn't very reliable either. Mona was their –A before and she faked her own death, confusing the police and costing them more time and money than she would ever get billed for. Caleb Rivers on the other hand, had his own record following him. And although some companies have shown him interest in his programming skills, the police here only seen him as a menace and cyber-criminal.
She didn't know why it hadn't come up sooner but that left her with one other choice.
Alison grabbed her phone and hesitantly looked for the one resource that would have to stick their neck out for this. She shook her head and pressed the phone to her ear, not sure if someone would answer, thinking maybe she should've-
"Hello, Alison?"
"Um, Toby, I think we need you to put on that badge again."
x-x-x-x
"Alison, I can't release her, not yet anyway, you need to be her to sign the papers for her transfer."
Alison struggled to keep her fingernails from breaking the skin of her palms.
"Dr. Pearson, why can't Toby or Ezra just sign them? The three of them can fly here together and she can stay at the hospital in Oakwood, it's a 20 minute drive from here and I know the care there is top notch."
Dr. Pearson wanted for Ali to have her way, he really did, but right now Ali was listed as Emily's only emergency contact and although Emily was 19, a legal adult and capable of signing herself out of the hospital's care, she wasn't in the right frame of mind and as this hospital's company policy would permit, doctor's were not allowed to release patients in such conditions, that's just not the kind of care facility they ran.
"It's not just the papers, Emily isn't quite yet cleared to travel."
Alison's heart dropped, "how soon can you make that possible, what does she need to do?"
"Alison she can't control what happens to her body and when, the soonest I can release her is in 6 days, no sooner."
x-x-x-x
Alison called Toby and filled him in on what Caleb and Mona discovered and however biased it may have been seen to his superiors, he would come back home on the next flight and resume his position and help them get the help they needed. Toby would need to fly to Rosewood as soon as he could and even though Ali hated the idea of leaving Emily alone, so did Ezra, The Brew was falling apart, he hired a few more employees and put his best barista in charge but without the proper management for a week…he needed to go in soon. He was being hammered with complaints and phone calls and distressed emails about filling orders from the suppliers and he couldn't lose his business too. It was the only thing he knew would keep his mind preoccupied.
That left Emily in that hospital without anyone who really knew her. Alison couldn't leave now, she knew too many pieces about Charles to not be present for every second that something was uncovered. On the flipside, the only reason her brain functioned enough to process stress, and the only reason she had air in her lungs filling her with life was sitting hundreds of miles away.
So Alison had no other choice. It was an easy one to make but in all honesty she didn't want to see Em until she got rid of her brother, Charles, -A, whatever, knowing for sure Emily was out of harm's way and they could finally be together. She missed Emily and having her nearby, she was only hesitant to have the brunette so close to her because Charles would be watching her every move and if Emily was where she was, Charles was sure to have at least one set of eyes on her too.
Decisions, pieces, choices and consequences.
Alison's life now was hanging from the threads of these. Every one she faced had a ripple effect, stretching farther than she could see at that moment.
x-x-x-x
Alison had to wait another day to fly back to California and sign the patient release forms. It was the soonest flight she could book and board since the planes at the airport had all been grounded since the accident. But she was boarded sooner than she thought and waited all the hours on the plane, to see the brown eyes she missed like crazy, the ones she craved now more than ever.
Soon the flight was over and as Alison stepped off the final steps she planted her foot straight into a small puddle and she watched as the one little step caused rings to grow until the edges were reached. A small ripple effect, like the one she would be facing from coming back for Emily.
AN: so I leave a lot of the chunks of chapters open-ended…you are all smart, some things are implied and I don't feel the need to explain every minute of every hour of every day that happens in this story. I don't leave too much to the imagination I hope, and I really hope you all can follow, if anything is confusing you, let me know! I'd love to clear it up any way that I can, also I know you have questions (i.e. what's gonna happen next? Where are you taking this? What's Charles' motive? Why is/was CeCE and Wren helping him?) but I'll answer those in the updates, no give-a-ways here.
Well, I hope you enjoyed, let me know what you thought! Any ideas? I love to hear your guesses about what I'll do next.
Lina