I just realized this story is exactly like an episode of the show. I am laughing so hard at myself right now.

Also, I am up much later than I should be, so I will just say thank you so much for all of the comments. You guys are awesome.

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You are the earth beneath my feet,
You are my gravity.

– My American Heart, Tired & Uninspired

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Three months later

Robby Ray shifted the bags of groceries to one arm and eased the door open. He could see Miley sitting at the kitchen table, mechanically eating a bowl of cereal and still in her pajamas even though it was after one. It was a nice day, still a little cool out, perfect beach weather, but he had no doubt that Miley wouldn't set foot outside, or notice the weather if she did.

The day she flew back from Des Moines, Robby Ray had gone to the airport angrier with her than he'd ever been. He'd meant to punish her, ground her, no phone, no allowance, nights and weekends full of yard work and chores, whatever else he could think of. But as soon as she had gotten off the plane he'd seen that there was nothing he could do to her. He'd hugged her instead, but she only stood there, and he'd realized slowly, heart sinking, that she had left the most important part of her in Iowa.

He could count on two fingers the number of times she'd been out of the house in the past few months for something other than school or Hannah. And she'd done those things grudgingly, finished the school year with sliding grades, carried out the Hannah obligations that had already been set but wouldn't let him book anything new.

It worried him. She wasn't spending every day in bed like that first week. She was eating, showering, functioning. But nothing beyond that. He knew that kind of loss, and how depression could flatten everything dull and distant. He'd had two kids depending on him and that had pulled him out of it, and in any other circumstances he would have been confident that he and Lilly and Oliver could have pulled Miley out of this, but in these ones he didn't know what to do other than give her time and support while she learned how to heal.

And now he had news that wouldn't help with that, but better she hear it from him than anyone else. She would have to start moving on with her life sometime; he couldn't protect her from the fact that the rest of the world was moving on with theirs already.

He set the groceries on the counter and began to unpack them. "Hey, Mile."

"Hi, daddy," was the listless reply.

"I heard something at the market today."

She made a noise, enough to show she'd heard but nothing that could be stretched to indicate any interest in what he was saying.

He put away the milk and stuck a couple packages of chicken in the freezer. Then he braced himself. "I heard someone's moving into the Truscotts' house."

The silence was worse than anything she could have said. He pulled a bunch of bananas and a box of cereal from the other bag, busying himself so he would have an excuse not to look at her. "I know it's hard, Miley." He knew. Lord, he knew. "But it's been three months." Three months was nothing. He knew that too, and how he'd hated people who pointed out how much time had passed, as though he could forget a second of it.

She still wasn't saying anything. "I'm sorry." No noise at all, not even her spoon against her bowl. She'd stopped eating. He wanted her to cry, to yell at him, to do something to let out the pain she was feeling instead of retreating into it. He wanted to hug her, comfort her, but he knew from experience she wouldn't accept it and would only stay stiff in his arms until he released her.

So he took a deep breath and kept on, hoping to draw a reaction and feeling horrible for it. "Their name's Sullivan. I heard they – "

There was a noise now, that of a chair scraping against the floor, and by the time he could turn around her chair was empty and the front door was gaping open, Miley gone.

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The sidewalk was rough under her feet but Miley didn't care, not even when one foot came down hard on a pebble she felt it all the way up the back of her leg. She was in her pajamas; didn't care about that, either.

My name isn't really Lilly Truscott. It's Alyssa Sullivan.

Sullivan.

Miley pushed herself faster.

She shouldn't have left like that. Her father must be freaking out. She knew how worried he was about her, and she was sorry for that, for the sadness and shadows she could see flickering across his face when he looked at her. But her regret was an abstract thing. Everything was now.

Her dad seemed to understand. He kept telling her he did, kept saying how hard it was. But it wasn't hard. It wasn't anything. Sometimes, lying awake in bed at night, she thought maybe hard was what it seemed from the other side of this, once you'd climbed out of the well. But Miley didn't even know how to stop falling.

There was a moving van in the Truscott's driveway, a different company than the one that had come before. Two weeks after Lilly had left, a large moving van had shown up on the street outside her house and cleared everything out. But Miley and Oliver had beaten it, using the spare key to let themselves in. They'd taken everything of Lilly's except the furniture. Miley had most of it in her room, which was where she preferred to spend her time now.

Miley skirted the van, ignoring the surprised glances of the movers in the midst of unloading the Truscotts' dining room table. She ran straight through the open door and almost crashed into Heather, who was wrestling an end table closer to the couch.

"Oh, Miley," Heather said when she'd recovered. "I was wondering when we'd see you." Miley could only look at her wildly. Where was Lilly? Heather nodded her head at the stairs. "She's in her room."

Miley honestly couldn't remember going up them, but then she was standing in the door to Lilly's room, so she must have. Lilly was making up her bed, her back to Miley, but before Miley could even gather up breath enough to say anything Lilly turned around and saw her.

Miley couldn't move and Lilly didn't. Miley couldn't dare to even breathe, in case Lilly disappeared when she did.

"Hi," Lilly said finally, after so long that Miley felt she'd aged twenty years since she left her kitchen to come here.

Miley took a step forward, then stopped, unsure. She wanted to rush across the room and grab Lilly, hug her, kiss her. But the Truscotts – the Sullivans had been back a while, long enough for Lilly's bed and dresser to be brought up, long enough for Miley's dad to hear about them moving in, and Lilly hadn't come or called. What if Miley had been imagining things when Lilly kissed her? What if Lilly hadn't meant 'I love you' with it, only 'Goodbye'?

"You're back?" Miley said, keeping herself by the door, a sudden storm of emotion flooding her, hope and fear and love, all of those, when she had gotten so used to their absence. Some of it spilled out of her mouth in a nervous babble before she could stop it. "I mean, you're moving in – how – why – I thought you couldn't – what happened?"

Lilly stared at her, blanket dangling from her hands down to the floor. "You didn't hear about it? It was all over the news a few months ago."

The news? Miley had mostly forgotten a world existed outside her bedroom. But she didn't want to admit that to Lilly. "No. Hear what?"

"Deane got killed."

"What?" Something like that really would have been all over the news. Even if Miley hadn't seen it, her dad must have, and probably Oliver. Why hadn't they told her?

Because...because they wouldn't have known it had anything to do with Lilly. She hadn't told them anything about what happened in Iowa, nothing she'd learned or done. She hadn't been able to. And the Marshals would have kept Lilly's dad out of the story. "What happened?" she asked.

"I guess he'd been trying to make a deal," Lilly said. "He was naming names, giving up evidence against some people he used to work with. They didn't like that, so they waited and got him when he was being brought to the courthouse the first day of the trial. He got rushed to the hospital, but the Marshals told us he bled out before he even got there. They shot him five times."

"Wow." Miley was almost glad she hadn't known. She would have spent the past few months worrying even more over Lilly, wondering if Heather had somehow convinced the Marshals to let her go to the trial, if she'd taken Lilly with her, if Lilly had been hurt. Or if her dad... "Your dad, was he...?"

"No. He wasn't there. He would have been the next day, but not that one."

So close. What if he'd been there? What if he'd been going into the courthouse at the same time? "God, Lilly, I'm sorry."

"It's okay. He wasn't there."

"I know, I just wish..." That none of this had ever happened, that Lilly and her family had never been in danger? Too late for that. And where would Lilly be if none of this had happened? Where would Miley be? Where were they now? "But you're back, right? For good?"

"Yeah." Lilly put the blanket down and sat on the bed, and Miley shifted on her feet, uncomfortably aware of the distance between them. It felt awkward to be consciously keeping herself from Lilly, strained. They'd never been much for personal space around each other. But she didn't know how Lilly felt and didn't want to misstep, to add anything more to what Lilly already had to deal with.

"It took forever for the Marshals to decide that it was safe. They were worried there might still be someone out there who would come after us. But Deane's dead and the people who used to work for him are the ones who killed him. Even if someone was still loyal to Deane and wanted revenge, they'd go after those guys. No one cares about us anymore, especially since Dad didn't even get to testify again."

"So they said you could come back?"

Lilly nodded. "They said we could go wherever we wanted, even back to Baltimore. But our lives are here now. Mom and Dad's work, Sam's school, you and Oliver. Ian's never really known anywhere else. So we came back. We're not even in the Program anymore."

"Is that why you're the Sullivans now?"

"Yeah."

Miley took a step towards her, paused, fidgeted. "Does that mean I have to get used to calling you Alyssa?" She didn't really care. She'd call Lilly whatever Lilly wanted, be whatever Lilly wanted, even if it was only friends, just as long as Lilly stayed.

"No," Lilly said. "I'm keeping Lilly. Lilly Sullivan. Because all the important things in my life happened while I was Lilly." She took a breath, pulled the blanket halfway in her lap and stared down at it. "Most of them, anyway. There was one thing that happened to me while I was Chloe that was pretty important."

"There – there was?" Miley took another step forward but wouldn't let herself hope. Maybe Lilly meant Deane dying, or...

"I don't know," Lilly said, keeping her eyes on the blanket. "You tell me."

Oh. Lilly wouldn't look at her, and Miley realized that Lilly must be worried about the same thing she was, that she thought maybe Miley had only meant what she'd said because of the circumstances, because they would never see each other again and so wouldn't have to deal with the consequences of saying it. She was trying to let Miley off the hook, give her a way out. As if Miley wanted one.

"There was."

Lilly glanced up. "Yeah?" she asked shyly.

"Yeah," Miley said, and then they were grinning at each other like idiots and Miley's face felt stretched out and weird because she hadn't had a reason to smile like this since Lilly left.

Lilly pushed the blanket from her lap and came across the room, but she stopped a foot away and Miley could see uncertainty still wavering in her eyes, like maybe she thought something had changed since Iowa, or like the past three months apart had made them strangers to each other. But that would never happen.

Miley didn't hesitate, just stepped forward once more and pulled Lilly to her, much more gently than Lilly had done, and kissed her softly, slowly. Taking her time.

They kept their foreheads together after and stood in each other's arms, breathing the same air, Miley's world righting itself, steadying.

"My dad's probably going crazy," she said much, much later, lifting her head. She didn't know how long she'd been gone. "As soon as he said people named Sullivan were moving in here, I ran out without even stopping to tell him anything."

"Your dad told you?"

"He heard about you moving in but he didn't know it was you."

"I'm sorry," Lilly said. "I wanted to call as soon as we got back, but we don't have phones yet. And I would have come to see you, but my mom's been so busy and she won't let me leave the house by myself. She's still kind of...you know."

She could guess. "Yeah." Miley didn't blame her. She didn't ever want to let Lilly out of her sight again either. "But do you think, if she went with us, we could go back to my house long enough to talk to my dad? And you could get your stuff. I have it in my room."

Lilly laughed. "I wondered why the Marshals kept claiming they didn't have it. I thought they'd just started getting rid of our stuff and were trying to cover it up."

"Nope. Oliver and I got to it first."

"Thanks." Lilly stepped back a little. "We should go find my mom. She'll take us once she finds out your dad doesn't know you're here."

"Okay." Neither of them moved towards the door.

"Miley?" Lilly said nervously. "I don't know if you...I mean, my parents know, but we don't have to tell your dad. About us. If you don't want to."

Miley wrapped her fingers around Lilly's. Lilly's parents knew? What had happened after they left Iowa? What had the last three months been for Lilly? She would have to find out later. There would be time later, now that it existed. "Of course we'll tell him. I think he knows already, anyway. I wasn't very good about hiding how much I missed you."

Lilly's face went solemn. She plucked at Miley's free hand with her sleeve. "Is that why you're in pajamas in the middle of the afternoon?"

Miley thought about what the last three months had been for her and tugged Lilly forward into a tight, fierce embrace. "Don't ever leave again," she whispered.

Lilly melted against her, arms around Miley's waist. "I won't. And Miley?"

"What?"

"I love you, too."

Miley kissed her again. She was on the other side now, out of the well. Lilly had gotten her there, Lilly would keep her there. Miley let the kiss end, and when she spoke she didn't know if she was talking to Lilly or herself. "Welcome home."

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You know what's really bad? I kind of want to write another fic based off this premise that's also a crossover with The Haunting Hour, where Cassie is Lilly's new identity and Jake is there because it's when he's trying to figure out how to be normal, and then Miley comes but the ending is angsty instead of happy like this one.

...Someone want to talk me out of that, plz?

I think I'll do the flipside for Amiss next, probably starting mid-week next week.