A/N: Thank you for the reviews! Sorry for the wait, things have been crazy lately but I have the house to myself this weekend so expect plenty of updates throughout all of my stories! Please review as each one means so much to me.
"I'd still thought that everything I thought about that night – the shame, the fear – would fade in time. But that hadn't happened. Instead, the things that I remembered, these little details, seemed to grow stronger, to the point where I could feel their weight in my chest. Nothing, however stuck with me more than the memory of stepping into that dark room and what I found there, and how the light then took that nightmare and made it real." - Sarah Dessen
They were sitting around their usual table in the Radley Hotel, glasses of champagne and plates of barely touched food in front of them as they attempted to be as normal as they possibly could be. Sometimes, they could forget all the troubles, but then a wave would overcome each of them and they would be reminded of where they were and why they were there. As Spencer handed them each a box, Hanna bit down on her lip and ran her fingers over it before she slowly opened it up, revealing the necklace with her name on it. She noticed Spencer was wearing one around her own neck as well, and it was enough to make her smile a little and forget about her worries for just one second. It was a blissful second, as she listened to Spencer's words, gently bouncing her son on her lap as he handled the necklace she was holding.
"... after what happened to Ali..." Her eyes glanced over to the blonde, and then at the other blonde next to her, leaving those words unspoken as Hanna just gave her a small nod of her head – she had forgiven her, for the most part, but she and Emily still hadn't spoken about what she had found out, and until then, her fear of what her best friend had to say was holding her back. "I started thinking and we're like this crazy, dysfunctional family but... we work... together and I've just decided that I'm at a point in my life where I want to put the people who have had my back before anyone else."
Hanna lifted her own drink and offered the other woman a small smile, "I'm right there with you." She took a sip of the champagne and then kissed Henry's forehead when he let out a squeal and made a move to grab Emily's hand, only for Emily to flinch and move her hand away from the baby. Hanna ignored the way her heart shattered, and she caught the way Spencer glanced over at the short interaction before she pressed a bunch of kisses to the little boys cheek and gave him her hand to play with instead. The tension was only increased further when Alison picked up the bill they had been given, her face visibly paling before she read out the words Hanna had never wanted to hear, "Roses are red, violets are blue, you killed Elliott and I could have killed you."
The blonde took a deep breath, and held her son even closer as she looked around, "A.D knows that we killed him." Spencer said, and Hanna's heart thumped and she hid her face in her sons hair as she closed her eyes. This couldn't be happening. Her head snapped up when she heard the sound of a police radio, her entire body shaking, breathing suddenly becoming more difficult by the second. "Are they coming for us?" She whispered, and looked down at the little boy in her arms – was she about to be arrested in front of her son? What would happen to him? Would he remember this moment for the rest of his life?
She relaxed momentarily when the police moved past them and towards the elevator, "They're not here for us, so who are they here for?"They were all scared, terrified that they had been caught, they were going to spend the rest of their lives in jail for a murder Hanna had essentially committed. The thought was enough to make her feel sick and her hand moved to the necklace she had placed around her neck – would her friends hate her in the end?
Emily was quick to move, and Hanna had no idea if that was because she really wanted to find out what was happening or if she just wanted to get away from Henry and the event he was associated with. The rest of them watched on as Emily spoke to her colleagues, each of them slowly moving to stand up as Hanna balanced Henry on her hip and waited for the news. "It's Sara Harvey. She's dead." It was not the kind of news she was expecting, Sara Harvey had been high on their suspect list and now what were they left with?
After that, things seemed to move slowly, everyone was crowded around, there were police everywhere, people were murmuring about the girl who had once been a kidnap victim as far as they were concerned. The girls knew better though, she wasn't one of the 'bunker girls' like they were, she was so far from that. Her eyes moved towards the body bag that was being wheeled out of the elevator and she looked at her best friend, biting down on her bottom lip before she placed a hand on her arm, "Em, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Sara said that Jenna wasn't the one we should be afraid of. I also saw a file on her desktop labelled Charlotte DiLaurentis." She muttered, as she moved away from the blonde and folded her arms, her eyes focused on the scene in front of her. Spencer stepped forward, "Well, something in there could link up to A.D. We need to steal that laptop."
After that, a plan was formed – secret whispers as the police were all over the hotel, and part of that plan included Hanna sneaking into Jenna's hotel room. They needed that laptop, Hanna needed that laptop because she needed the entire thing to be over. She wanted it to be over more than anything; so she could go back to her small apartment, in New York City and just be with her son. So much had happened since she had returned to Rosewood and some of it was because of Charlotte, much of it was because of what happened to Charlotte and other things were because of what happened to her. The fact that, despite being raped in New York, being back in Rosewood seemed to dredge everything else up. All of those feelings, the impossibility of hiding everything from her friends and most of all, hiding things from Caleb. It was too much.
The blonde moved slowly into the hotel room; Henry was safe with Aria and she was determined to get enough evidence to put an end to the nightmare they had found themselves in. She felt sick with determination, her hands shook and she dropped to her knees when she saw something beneath the bed, pulling the lock box out as she stared at it. The woman was so entirely focused on the task at hand, her fingers running over the lock as her mind ran a million miles of a minute of what potential evidence could be locked inside – maybe it was Jenna after all. She had no idea how she was meant to get into that box, until she glanced up and jumped back, her hand flying to her chest as she took a deep breath. She bit down harshly on her bottom lip in an attempt to stop the impending panic attack, tears in her eyes before she stared at the man who had walked into the room without her knowing. "C-Caleb, what are you doing here?"
His face was full of concern, but she could tell he was beating himself up as well for sneaking up on her like that. Hanna struggled with most forms of contact or interaction, especially after her most recent kidnapping, so she could see the guilt in his eyes because, more than anyone, he knew how she was. "Sorry, I'm..." He scratched the back of his head and frowned, shaking his head at himself, "I'm an idiot – I was... your mom hired me to beef up the hotel security and I saw you come in." He stepped a little closer to her as he sighed, "Look... I don't think what happened to Sara was an accident and I'm betting you don't either."
Her head shook in response, and she finally managed to calm herself down enough to move to a stand, "Em saw something on Jenna's laptop that can link back to A.D. It might explain what happened to Sara..." The man smirked and held out his hand, a hopeful look in his eyes before she took it, "I know a way we can get a key to the lock box but I'm going to need your help."
It was only half an hour later when she found herself standing outside the spa with Spencer, as she leaned up against the wall and sighed, "So, you couldn't find her laptop but you did find a lock box?" Their voices were low, there was just a wall between them and Jenna, and they didn't want her to catch onto everything they had meticulously – in the space of ten minutes - planned. "Yeah, it's big enough... the laptop could be in there or it could be something else." She murmured, running her fingers through her hair before the door opened and she turned around to take the key from a smirking Caleb, who looked beyond proud of himself.
Her eyes rolled in response and she looked behind him at Jenna, who was laying on the massage table, "You know, you can turn the lights on, she wouldn't know the difference." She gave him a smirk of her own, and she didn't miss the look exchanged between Spencer and Caleb when, for just a second, they saw a glimpse of the Hanna she had once been. The sarcastic, blunt and snarky version of herself that they all loved and missed. But as quickly as the words had left her mouth, she was back to the person they had grown to know and love, as she walked quickly back to the room they had only just left and Caleb sighed to close the door to the spa in an attempt to keep the woman distracted until the other two were done.
Spencer and Hanna moved into the room, quickly closing the door behind them, before she led her over to the bedroom, getting down on her knees to unlock the box, "No laptops, just papers." She was disappointed, but held them up as Spencer snapped photographs, and her eyes continued to move around the room in the hopes she would be able to find the piece of evidence they need to end the nightmare. There was a noise, enough to cause Hanna to freeze on the spot, whilst Spencer quickly packed everything away and yanked her arm as she hid under the bed. Hanna would have been caught if the brunette hadn't been with her, as her entire body had frozen, only to be forced under the bed by the other woman who quickly wrapped an arm around her. She managed to snap herself out of it enough to stare at the boots of whoever had just walked through the door, knowing Caleb would have made himself known by then, he would have learned his lesson from the last time and besides, he was the only thing keeping Jenna out of that room.
The lock box was pulled from beside them, a burnt file thrown on the floor before it was placed along with the other papers they had found. And then she saw his face, for the first time in years, Noel Kahn. Her grip tightened on her best friend, and her eyes closed, her body flinching when he kicked the table in anger. If he found them, she had no idea what would happen to them and for some reason, all she could think right then was that, him phoning the police would probably be the nicest option. It was hard to trust anyone after everything that had happened.
Somehow though, despite everything, she trusted Caleb. There was still a part of her that feared him walking out on her and Henry, although they weren't in a relationship, so would it really be walking out? Henry sat between the two of them on the couch in Lucas' apartment, his eyes focused on the television screen, pacifier in his mouth, as he clutched onto his favourite blanket and cuddly toy. When she spoke of A.D or A, or Charlotte, the kidnapping and sometimes, even the rape when he was in the vicinity, she wondered if maybe, he understood anything. If he would retain any of the information that had been spoken around him. The thought terrified her, even if she knew it was impossible – he was just a baby, his memories had yet to form (at least, she hoped).
She shook those thoughts off and took a deep breath, "Okay, you beautiful mind... what's that code mean?" She finally said, with a smile on her face as she looked at the man who was sat next to her with his eyes focused entirely on the pictures she and Spencer had taken earlier that day. "I don't know, I'm gonna need some extra caffeine to figure that out." He mumbled, before he let out a frustrated sigh.
"Well, this is like some kind of test for Mary, right?"
Caleb nodded his head, "Yeah, it's her DNA." She gulped, and busied herself as she pulled her son onto her lap when she saw his head starting to drop, and he was forcing himself to keep his eyes open. Caleb busied himself with his laptop as Hanna rocked Henry on her lap, running her fingers through his hair as she hushed him gently, until he finally gave into exhaustion, eventually. "Okay, so I recognise the pattern but I'm not familiar with this encryption."
The blonde moved a little closer to the man, before her eyes glanced down at her sleeping son, "Spencer told Emily about what happened and now she won't even look at me or Henry. He... he reached out for her today and she ignored him. She loved him so much before but now he's just the son of a rapist and this is exactly what I wanted to avoid, Caleb... I didn't want people thinking of him differently. I didn't want him to get hurt because of something that happened..." She trailed off, tears in her eyes as Caleb set his laptop to the side and turned towards them with a frown.
"She's probably just processing at the moment... Emily loves Henry, everyone does." His fingers moved to gently graze along the little boys cheek, his own eyes tearing up before he cleared his throat, "I'm so sorry for walking out on you before..." There were those words she had longed to hear since he had walked out of that door two years before but they still hurt more than she thought they would. He had apologised before, but there was something so real about that sentence, real enough for her to visualise the day he left her, a sobbing mess on the floor as she begged for him to come back. He was gone before she could tell him, and she wished she could have said those words so much sooner.
"It's hard, Hanna... hearing what you went through and seeing you with this baby that was... we all know what his father was and you know better than anyone and it's so hard to just accept but Emily doesn't blame him, none of us do and I shouldn't have just walked out. Your reaction wasn't normal, I wish you could have told me but the way you reacted, that wasn't the normal reaction to someone getting found out after they've cheated. I was so lost in my anger and my hatred for the... baby growing inside of you that wasn't mine, I couldn't see past that and I'm just sorry." Hanna sniffed, her eyes moving down to the little blonde baby who looked so much like her, she was thankful to genetics that allowed her to look into the eyes of her baby and not have to suffer even more by seeing the same eyes that had bore into her that night.
"It was just... difficult. Being so close to someone and then having to cut them out of your life completely. It was like losing a limb or something, a part of you." She finally said, trying to get out how she felt, even if the words barely made sense. She needed Caleb to know what he meant to her, how it felt to lose him. "A-are we still friends?" She finally asked, not missing the hurt that passed on his features before he cleared his throat and moved his fingers from Henry's cheek, before he forced a smile and picked his laptop back up, "Always."
Nothing good ever happens during the night in Rosewood, Hanna had very quickly decided. In fact, nothing good ever happened in the dark anywhere. Darkness brought out the evil, and whilst she knew that evil lurked whether in the day or the night, she still knew that the last thing they should be doing was walking in the middle of nowhere. She sighed as she heard the leaves crunching beneath their feet, the ground shining from their torches, this was so dangerous but somehow they always found themselves in the most dangerous of situations. "There's nothing here!" She finally announced, earning her an eye roll from Emily who quickly grabbed her arm and pointed it down, "Cellars are below ground, Hanna."
Somehow, it was the most normal interaction she had with her best friend since she had found on what happened, so the blonde just gave the other woman a small pout as she looked at the ground. "Guys!" She heard, causing her to look up and see what Spencer had found, focusing on the task at hand before she said what she was really thinking about the entire thing. Someone was after them, someone wanted to hurt them and yet, there they were, going to a dark, dingy cellar in the middle of nowhere. No one would be able to find them, at least not for a while.
Her nose scrunched up when they started to walk down the steps, and it became increasingly obvious that no one had been down there in so long, "What's that smell?" She lifted her hand to her nose, giving Spencer a smirk when the brunette spoke with that usual Hastings tone – a form of bitter sarcasm that never failed to give Hanna some sense of security. Spencer was there, and sometimes, that was as close to safe as she could get. "Yeah, if grandma died, was eaten by her cats and then found five days later."
"Dark much?" Spencer shrugged her shoulders and looked behind her at her best friends, "Well, it's just dark enough." She moved towards a file cabinet, yanking out one of the drawers as she shone the light on the names there, "Guys, look at this, Jessica had a file on each of us. She was investigating us." The blonde moved to her side quickly, Emily not too far behind her as they glanced down at the files that filled the drawer, "Yeah, all of us except Aria, she doesn't have a file." Her eyes scanned over the names she could see there, tempted to pick up her own but instead, the second drawer was opened along with a bunch of other secrets none of them wanted to be true.
Emily was staring down at the words in front of her, her eyes wide and her face pale before she glanced behind her at the only DiLaurentis in the room, "Mary had a second child." She finally announced, and it was with those words that the entire world seemed so much more terrifying than it had moments before. Charlotte had been one thing, she had thought of them as her dolls, as objects she wanted to play with but this person, they wanted revenge. A potential brother or sister of the woman who had put them through hell before. "Wait, a second what?" Her hands shook and she had to grip a little tighter onto her torch as she tried to focus – was there anything else that could happen to make her life any worse than it already was?
"Boy or girl?"
"All it says is no complications due to prior birth. The kid would have been our age by now." Hanna almost wanted to burst out laughing, Rosewood in itself was a huge joke being played on her and her friends and anyone who happened to be involved with them. Now, she had to learn that there was a twenty-three year old running around, related to Charlotte, who wanted revenge. She scoffed and looked behind her at the other blonde, "Well, that's great. Now you have another cousin who wants to kill us." She pushed past Alison, although she knew it wasn't her fault – she was as much of a victim as the rest of them when it came to A, super A, A.D or whoever the hell was after them next. She wondered how many A's there would be before it all came to an end.
Her eyes fell on the other wall, covered in newspaper clippings and photographs of all of the girls, Jessica had been stalking them for so long, it was terrifying to think that whilst Mona and Charlotte had been after them for all those years, the mother of their 'dead' best friend was after them as well. She barely listened as her friends spoke, her torch shining over some photographs of herself as she tried to remember where they were taken, what she had been doing, why she had never noticed. "The last memory I have of her is when she was burying me alive. She knew I got out. She never stopped searching." Alison whispered beside her and Hanna just shrugged her shoulders, "So, this was kind of like her lair."
Before anything else could be said or done about everything they had found, the sound of a car alarm going off in the background causing them all to turn around with their eyes wide. Hanna looked at the car with all four of the doors wide open and she felt her heart dropping, someone knew they were there, everything they did to try and find out who the hell was after them was just landing them in more and more trouble with every passing second. Her torch dropped to the ground and she covered her ears as she closed her eyes and Spencer ran over to the car she had parked there when they arrived; someone must have followed them, despite everything they had been through over the past few years, none of them were adept enough at identifying when they were being followed or watched. "The keys are gone, it won't shut off unless the keys are in there! Just... get inside and shut the doors, it'll shut up if you shut the doors!"
She could barely hear the sound of Spencer screaming above the loudness of the alarm but she followed the other two and jumped into the back of the car with a relief like nothing she could ever describe when the alarm finally stopped. It was just when her heart started to relax just a little, when she started to panic again. The doors locked and she could hear the panic of the people around her and it only served to make Hanna shake even more as she tried to open the door; since everything that had happened, she had an intense fear of being trapped and right then, she was completely and utterly trapped somewhere they would never be found. She let out a sob as she tried the door again, the tears falling down her face as she shook her head; she was there again, she was in that shed, she was waiting for A.D to come back and hurt her, destroy her.
The only thing that distracted her from her thoughts was the sound of a monotone, computerised voice counting down the seconds. "We're going to blow up!" She exclaimed, the first thing that came to her mind, because that was all that could mean, it was the only explanation. "Hanna, shut up!" She barely heard Alison snapping at her, their panicked breathing overtaking everything in the car as Emily looked around, "Spence, do you have a jack or anything under the seat to break the window?!"
Hanna let out a sob, before she sat back in the seat and took a deep breath, Emily's hand moving to her own, "We're going to blow up, aren't we? That's what countdowns mean." She whispered, her hands shaking as she moved to grab her phone, staring down at the background – a smiling Henry – wanting that to be the last thing she ever saw. When it reached zero, the others ducked their heads and Hanna kept her eyes focused on her phone, wishing she had known this was going to happen; she had wanted to die so many times before but Henry had been the one thing stopping her and now, she hadn't even gotten the chance to say goodbye to him. In those few seconds, she wished him everything she would never be able to give him and all of the things she would never have the chance to give him – the chance at a normal life, pure bliss and happiness, all the love in the world, safety, a home, a family...
"We're still here." She mumbled, almost dropping her phone in shock when she looked around, wiping at the tears that fell down her face. If you find out who I am before I find out who killed Charlotte, you die – A.D
She read the words on the screen and moved further back in her seat as she closed her eyes and shook her head, "I need to go home," She whispered, "I-I need my son, I need to go home, please... Spence..." They didn't have the keys yet, she knew it was impossible but the panic had set in and the only thing keeping her in the car right then as Emily's hand in her own and then the sound of a loud, large explosion in front of them. The place they had just been in, the one place that held evidence they needed to find out who the hell was trying to hurt them. Hanna pressed her phone against her chest as she closed her eyes, praying to every God she struggled to believe in that maybe they would be okay.
The sound of something scraping along the window behind her pulled her from her thoughts and she slowly turned her head to be met with familiar words that she couldn't quite place right then. "Guys," She whispered, causing the other three to turn their heads and watch as an unknown person continued to write the words on the back window before moving away, the sound of keys dropping causing a momentary relief to run through Hanna's body before Alison repeated the words out loud, "I see you."
It seemed as though hours had passed before Hanna found herself standing outside the building she was staying in, rubbing her eyes in an attempt to rid herself of the tears that still fell. Emily was beside her, waiting for the blonde to make the first move to walk into the place but Hanna's eyes were focused on the light shining through the second floor window as she bit down on her lip, knowing that Caleb would be waiting for her and Henry would be in there, fast asleep and seemingly unaware of the things that were happening around him. "So, you were..." The words were left unsaid but Hanna knew what Emily was referring to and she slowly nodded her head before she looked at the woman.
"I wanted to be the one to tell you, it never should have been Spencer." Emily gave a nod of her head before she pulled Hanna towards the curb, so both of them could sit down. Hanna's arms wrapped around her knees and she rested her head on top of her arms as she looked across the otherwise empty street. "Please don't hate Henry," She finally whispered, when a few moments of silence had passed between the two women, "I saw the way you moved away from him today and I don't want you think of him as the product of what happened. He's still the same, beautiful baby boy he was before you found out. I struggled for so long to fall in love with him but... he's my world, Em and I couldn't take it if my best friend couldn't see beyond it. His father is an awful, horrible person but Henry is innocent. It took me so long to distinguish between the two, I almost lost him because of it."
She heard Emily's shaky sigh beside her and finally, she glanced at her, chewing down on her lip before her hand slipped into her best friends, waiting for her to say something. "I don't hate him," Emily finally said, "I hate myself for not realising. I knew you were struggling but I didn't do anything, I just sat right up there on my high horse thinking you were struggling because you cheated on Caleb and found yourself as a single mother. I thought it was normal, I thought... I don't know what I thought but I should have known, I thought I knew you better." She ran her fingers through her hair and then moved to rest her hand on Hanna's shoulder, "I could never hate him, or you but I hate what happened and I hate myself for not seeing it. You could have told me, Han, you could have and you should have..."
Hanna nodded her head, "It's easier said than done though, isn't it? It's hard to say the words, it's hard to tell people what happened, there were days when I wished I could scream it from the rooftops so everyone would know that I wasn't this awful, horrible cheat who had this perfect man who loved her so much but it wasn't good enough... and then there were other days I needed to keep the secret close to me because I-I was embarrassed, mortified and ashamed." She looked down and shook her head, "The words were on the tip of my tongue so many times but I just couldn't say them. It was like they were stuck, I was stuck."
Emily wrapped her arm around her best friend and they snuggled further into each other, tears falling down their faces as they sat in silence before eventually, Emily broke it, "He's beautiful, Hanna. He is absolutely, amazingly perfect and he is loved and that is all thanks to you. It doesn't matter who his father is because he is all you."
