"How is she?" Nick said as the doctor came out of Paige's room. Emily stood up too but stood back from Nick, trying to avoid another screaming match.

"Stable for now. Ms. Hastings is in there with her, and as requested by Ms. McCullers, Nick is not allowed to enter the room." The doctor looked at her pointedly. Emily stepped forward enough for the doctor to look at her. "An Ms. Hastings says you are not allowed in the room right now either." With that he walked away.

"You can't keep me out of my daughters room." Nick followed the doctor, throwing a fit the entire time, while Emily sat back down on the bench and waited for Spencer to come out of the room. It was a full hour later before anyone made any movement in Paige's room. Spencer walked out looking for Emily.

Spencer watched for twenty minutes as the doctors worked on Paige. She knew throwing Emily and Nick out was a good idea. Paige's blood pressure had spiked during the argument between Nick and Emily and caused the girl to go into cardiac arrest before passing out. The doctors had her stable now and wanted to do everything they could to keep Paige relaxed and comfortable. After the doctors walked out, Spencer walked over to the bed and pulled out a chair to site beside Paige's bed.

She looked up at the girl attached to different machines with an oxygen mask over her mouth. A far cry from the girl she once went head to head with on the field. The dark circles under her eyes making her face look somewhat hollow. Her chest rose slowlywith every breath, followed by a beep of a machine behind her. Spencer reached out to grab the girls hand and squeezed it once, hoping that Paige could feel that she was not alone.

"You know, you used to be able to knock girls over with the bump of your shoulder. You were so intimidating on the field. Emily would have loved to see you back then. She had a thing for aggressive athletes. She needed someone like you. Three weeks before the start of senior year, her then girlfriend, Maya, was killed in a car crash. Her and the girl she was riding with were high, police said it didn't look like they had made an attempt to miss the telephone pole. Just drove into it head first. Emily had a hard time dealing with that. She drank. About 90% of the time we were with her, she was drunk. And then Alison showed up. She moved into a house a few blocks from Emily. She used her weakened state to get Emily to do whatever she wanted. I couldn't get Emily to leave her. For five years, all Alison did was control her and manipulate her. Senior year of college, Emily broke and left Alison. It was actually the hotel in the town she lives in now that she left her. She moved in with me for the rest of that year, but, she was so broken. She wouldn't speak to me about the things that were bothering her. She would just lock herself up in her room, throw herself into her studies or work. When she wasn't locked in her room, she would go out and get drunk, bring random girls home." Paige's monitor beeped loudly at this remark and Spencer swore she saw Paige shake her head side to side. "Ok, no more of that talk. Until a week ago Paige, I was so afraid that she would never be the same girl she was before Maya's accident. But then I saw the way she was with you, and I knew. I knew that somehow, she was going to be ok. That for the first time in a year and a half since Alison, she believed she could move on. I love her and I want her to be happy, Paige. And I fully support it, if you are what makes her happy. But I swear to God, if you hurt her, or you send her back into that dark place again, I will make sure you stay in this bed for the rest of your life. Emily..."

"Em." Spencer looks up to see that Paige had moved her mask aside with her free hand and had mumbled something.

"What?" Spencer asked.

"Emily." Paige said, without opening her eyes.

"Want me to get her?" Spencer asked, Paige nodding her head in response.

"Spencer!" Emily jumped up as the girl was looking around for Emily.

"Hey! She is asking for you." Spencer said with a small smile. She grabbed Emily's hand as the girl made to walk past Spencer. "Be gentle with her. We can't have her blood pressure going that high again right now."

"Ok." Emily said and made her way to the door when Spencer let her go. She stopped and looked back at the girl again, getting a nod of encouragement before entering the room. It was more quite than the hallway she had been sitting in before. She made her way to the chair sitting beside Paige's bed and sat down, grabbing the hand that was laying beside the still body. She sat there silently for a few moments, just taking the appearance on the girl in.

Somehow she looked like she had lost weight since arriving at Emily's, or maybe the color of her pale skin and the dark circles made it look that way. A tear rolled down Emily's cheek as she sat looking at Paige. Even though she was sick, the girl was still the most beautiful thing Emily had ever layed eyes on, thinking back to the first time she had seen Paige, in the same position.

Movement out of the corner of her eye caused her to look up and see that Paige was moving her head side to side slightly, her eyebrows furrowed and mumbling something that Emily couldn't hear due to the oxygen mask. The beeping behind her got louder, so Emily stood and leaned over the girl, kissing her forehead and whispering, "I'm here" over and over, calming the girl down until she looked down and saw that Paige, once again, looked relaxed and comfortable.

Paige opened her eyes and looked at Emily before pulling her mask aside and speaking. "Up." Was all she said.

"What?" Emily said as she stood and helped hold the mask for the girl.

"Get up here with me." Paige whispered out, weak from the events of the day. She could feel herself falling back to sleep and wanted Emily to get up into the bed with her. She moved herself over so that there was room for Emily to lay down beside her. "Please." That was all it took for Emily to climb into the bed beside Paige. Paige immediately clung to Emily like she was a life line, afraid that Emily would leave if she let go. She buried her face into Emily's neck and breathed deeply, smelling the perfume that Paige had smelled the day Emily sent her into her room to get a swim suit. Emily layed her head on the top of Paige's, kissing the girls forehead and wrapping an arm around her waist. The two settled into a comfortable silence before Emily heard the soft air leaving Paige's lips, telling her that Paige had fallen back to sleep. It wasn't long before the beeping of the machines, that were Paige's heartbeat, lulled Emily to sleep too. This caused the two girls to miss the face looking through the window at them.

"Alison." Hannah spoke from behind the blonde, causing the girl to turn and smile wickedly at the three girls standing before her."Why are you here?"

"I have come back for what is mine." Alison said matter of factly.

"And that would be?" Aria asked the girl.

"Emily." Alison stated, walking away from Hannah, Aria and Spencer before the girls could say any more. Alison walked right over to Nick McCullers and started speaking to him, but the girls could not hear what she was saying. Judging by Nick McCullers face, it was nothing that they wanted him to hear.