A/N: Thank you for the reviews – the next chapter will be rather heavy on the Caleb/Henry bonding so hopefully that will answer all your requests!

"This is the way the world ends.

Not with a bang but a whimper." - T.S Eliot

Hanna smiled as she opened her eyes and tilted her head up slightly to look at the still sleeping man. Her head was resting in the crook of his neck, her hand on his bare chest as his arm wrapped around her and held her close. It was a moment she had never thought would happen, not because they had broken up but for so long, she had never imagined herself being touched by another man. The thought had so often paralysed her, the panic would rise and she'd be right back in that dark alley.

Caleb was different though, he was patient, slow, gentle and when he had stopped the moment she flinched away when his fingers had brushed over her neck to move some of the hair that had fallen there, just to ask if she was okay, she knew that no matter what, she was going to be okay. The blonde wanted the moment to last forever but she was distracted by the sound of her phone ringing and with a frown, she moved from his side and climbed out of the bed, dressed in only his shirt.

With one quick look at the caller ID, she quickly answered it, "Do you have the results?" She asked, keeping her voice low and to the point, before he could even greet her or introduce himself, "Yeah, they're not a match." At that, she felt her heart drop and she shook her head, it couldn't be true, Noel had to be Mary's son, she was so sure. She was so sure that she had kidnapped him and risked everything because of it. "What? Are you sure?"

"We tested the sample you gave against the DNA you provided and they don't match." Hanna ran her fingers through her hair and glanced behind her to make sure Caleb was still asleep, "Is there anyway you made a mistake?" She questioned, "No, those two people are not related." She tried to come up with reasons why in her head, hoping that at least one of them were true and he could re-run the test and give her the results she do desperately wanted and needed right then, "Okay, so there's no way you dropped ketchup from your hot dog or one of your hairs from your beard fell in there?"

"Uh, I don't have a beard."

"You have to be wrong!" When he replied, confirming that they had not made one, and indeed, Noel Kahn was not a Drake as she had so firmly believed, she hung up the phone quickly with a small groan, typing out a text to her best friends as she bit down on her bottom lip, Spencer's house. Now. I screwed up big.


"So, you just decided to go rogue?" Spencer glared at the blonde, followed by a shake of her head before she looked around at the other women in complete shock. They had suspected that Hanna was up to something, they knew she wanted Noel to confess to everything he had done more so than anyone else but at the same time, she never thought Hanna Marin would go so far.

"Well, I was so sure Noel was our guy and you guys were just getting cold feet." She shrugged her shoulders, nibbling on her bottom lip, guilt and embarrassment in her eyes as she looked down at the counter and took a deep breath when Spencer snapped back at her, "Hanna, if by cold feet you mean we weren't willing to abduct someone and beat a confession out of them, then yes, we got cold feet."

With a sigh, Hanna looked down at her hands, "I'm sorry, I just thought if I did this on my own then I could prove to you guys that..." She paused, wondering what she had been trying to prove for just a second – was she attempting to prove that she was okay? Was she trying to prove that she could do things by herself without suffering a panic attack? Was she trying to prove to everyone around her that she was strong? She settled on the first thing that came into her mind at that moment, "Noel Kahn was A.D."

For the first time, Spencer didn't say anything back, instead, Aria looked at her best friend in confusion, "I can't help but notice that you keep talking in the past tense."

"Well, there was a problem." She groaned when they questioned her, knowing the time had come that had led to her sitting in Spencer's house confessing that she had lied to them, "I was wrong. I got the results back and Noel isn't Mary's second child." Of course, the confusion followed because whilst Hanna had been the most certain, the others had been convinced along the way. It would have made so much sense if Noel was who they thought he was, the results had put a spanner in the works.

"So, you're saying he's not A.D?"

Hanna frowned, shrugging her shoulders, unsure why they were asking her the questions as though somehow she was meant to hold all the answers. "Well, I'm not really saying that either." Alison rolled her eyes at Hanna's reply, "What are you saying, Hanna?"

"I'm saying, I have Noel tied up in a chair in an old motel room and we need to deal with that!" The blonde exclaimed, exasperated, getting increasingly annoyed with each passing second because she had come to them with a problem and she needed help sorting it out. Her fingers ran through her hair and she took a deep breath, watching as Spencer leaned forward with a hint of a smirk in her eyes and a frown on her lips, "So, we're a we again?"

Hanna didn't response, only aimed a glare towards her best friend, giving a one shouldered shrug as she resisted the urge to roll her own eyes. She had come to them for help, if they weren't going to give it to her, then she had no idea what she was supposed to do. When Emily spoke, she glanced at the woman with a grateful smile, nodding her head in agreement – just because he wasn't Mary Drake's child, then that didn't mean he wasn't the person who had been tormenting them. She remained silent as a plan was formed, playing with a thread on her top as she listened. There was a part of her that wanted to tell them about the big step she had made the night before, she wanted to discuss something semi-normal that she was meant to be able to say to her best friends but instead, they had to deal with the man she had kidnapped and left.


Hanna took a quick look around to make sure nobody was around before she unlocked the door, rolling her eyes when Aria spoke, "You did remember to like... water and feed him right?"

She shrugged her shoulders, "Of course." She replied, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world although in reality, she gave him no food and barely any water; or at least about as much as she had gotten when he had taken her all those weeks ago. She barely registered what was in the room, until Spencer exclaimed, "Did you remember to tie him up?"

For the first time since the perfect night before, Hanna's heart started to beat quickly, the panic started to rise and she gripped at her hair as tightly as she could in an attempt to remind herself where she was. She couldn't fall apart, not in front of the people who would blame her if she did, at least because this was her fault. Her eyes watered though and she looked in complete despair at the ropes that had once held the man, "Oh my god." She managed to get out, feeling as though she was about to throw up at any moment. The exclaims from the other women reflected her own feelings and she closed her eyes, trying to remember her happy place as her therapist had taught her to do. She couldn't panic, not right then.

Finally, her eyes snapped open and she stared at the stand where the video camera had once been, "H-he took the camera ! He can make it look like I kidnapped him." Now she could let the panic truly set in because she had a son, and if Noel took that tape to the police, he could probably get away with everything he had done to them and Hanna would end up behind bars.

"You did kidnap him, Hanna!"

When Alison snapped at her, Hanna did the same, her glare settling on the other blonde, "Well now he can prove it!" Before the argument could escalate any further, the familiar sound of all their phones going off at the same time echoed through the empty room, meaning only one thing. When an address was read out, she looked down at the time – half an hour, they had half an hour to get to the place that she had never heard of.

Spencer drove them there, all of them in silence as Hanna tried to ignore the way her hands shook. Quickly, she took out her phone, sneaking a glance at Aria who was sitting next to her but seemed so engrossed in her own phone, staring at news articles that mentioned Nicole's name, Hanna took the opportunity she needed right then. I can't explain anything to you right now but I promise I will when I get home. I just need you to go to my mom's house, I need you to stay with her and Henry and I need you to make sure nothing happens to them. No matter what, I need you to protect him.

She stopped the tears that longed to fall down her cheeks as she pressed send, biting down on her lip before she turned off her phone and stared out the window, not able to stop the terrible feeling that radiated through her body the closest they got the address they had been given.


"Is the door locked?"

"I doubt it, who would want to break in here?" Spencer replied, her eyes quickly glancing around at the old, large house before Hanna let out a scream, stumbling back into Emily as she stared down at the disgusting creatures that had almost given her a heart attack, "Oh my god, I hate rats!"

"I had not knowing what this place is."

"And why Noel wants us here." Alison muttered, as they stared at the large, empty house, each of them shivering in fear. Hanna took a deep breath, daring to take another step further, gripping onto the thumb drive a little tighter as though it was her only security. Her blue eyes looked over at Emily as she moved towards a sign, calling to them that she had found something, "Joseph Lloyd King. School for the blind, established in eighteen seventy three." When Alison mentioned Jenna, Hanna gulped; they had asked Caleb and Mona to keep an eye on the blind girl who hadn't left the hotel since Sara's death but she had also asked Caleb, behind her best friends backs, to leave the hotel and go to her mother's house. "So, Jenna could have come here when she first lost her eyesight?" Hanna muttered, before the crackling of a loud speaker distracted her and she took a deep breath, trying to suppress her fear.

"I didn't lose my sight, you took it from me." Her eyes closed when her friends discussed how Jenna had gotten there in the first place, deciding not to mention that Mona couldn't have possibly watched every way out of that place or even know every way out of there on her own. Although, at the same time, she knew Jenna would have been waiting there for them along with Noel. Both of them were in the house, just waiting for them to hand over the one piece of evidence they had.

"Give us the camera and we walk away."

"And we'll pretend like none of this happened."

"Leave it on the table." Came the voice, as Hanna stepped back and slipped the evidence onto the table, suddenly bitter and annoyed that she hadn't thought of taking the camera with her when she had left the motel room. Her thoughts were momentarily distracted by the sound of her own, angry, desperate voice sounding through the empty house. "That's me, trying to get answers from Noel." Hanna whispered, her eyes staring at the stairs before she made a run for it – grab the camera, and then leave. That was all she could think of right then, she needed to take the camera, and then make a run for the door so she could go to her mother's house and check that the three people she loved so much were all okay.

As she quickly moved through the hallway, she could hear the sound of her voice as she demanded answers from Noel with no response. She heard the sound of the knife slashing against his skin and her hands quickly gripped at the nearest wall when her eyes closed and the flashes of her own screams and cries rang through her head and she took a deep breath. Quickly, when she felt Emily's hand on her lower back, she forced a smile and pushed herself through it, repeating Henry and then Caleb over and over again in an attempt to calm herself down.

"Was there a blind baby epidemic I didn't know about?" Alison commented, staring at the multiple cribs in the room they had just walked into, where the camera Hanna had set up in that motel room she suddenly regretted renting out, was resting in one of the dust filled cribs. "This is where they learned how to take care of kids." Emily responded to the other blonde, and for a moment, Hanna let her eyes wander over to one of the old, plastic dolls, wondering if Jenna would ever be able to hold her own child as Hanna had once been so terrified of being able to do herself.

Quickly, she shook it off when she realised that the blind woman was one of the reasons they were there, and there was no room for sympathy, not after everything she had done to them since that fateful night. "Let's just get out of here." She had her own baby to take care of, one she had been neglecting thanks to the games Noel wanted to play with them since they had arrived in Rosewood and she knew she needed to be with him more than she needed revenge, at least in that moment.

Slowly, they walked through the old blind school, their movements quiet, their words whispered but their breathing heavy. They were scared, all of them were and although it was disconcerting, Hanna still felt a little comforted by the fact she wasn't the only terrified one right then. With her eyes on the front door, she could feel the hope rising in her until Emily let out a groan, "I left my phone upstairs."

The blonde looked at their other friends, half expecting one of them to say they would go with Emily to grab her phone and then run back down but instead, their faces paled and each of them looked as though they were going to vomit just at the thought of venturing further into the creepy school than they were right then. The door was right there, and whilst Hanna half wanted to tell Emily to just get a new phone and leave it, she let out a sigh, "Come on," She whispered, handing the camera to Spencer as she walked past her before she followed the dark haired woman back up the stairs, muttering a sarcastic thank you to their friends as she did.

They had barely taken two steps from the top of the stairs when she heard a creaking sound, and her entire body froze. "Did you hear that?" Emily's hand moved into hers and Hanna's eyes glanced around quickly before they settled on the man she had last seen tied to a chair, bleeding and unconscious.

"Did you really think we'd let you leave?" He smirked, his bright eyes giving them both the once over before he shook his head, "You know too much." Hanna gulped, she had heard that before, after Mona had ran her over with a car – she had known too much then and that had cost her a broken leg, years later, she wondered what it was going to cost her right then. She wasn't going to stick around long enough to find out though, as she and Emily ran into the nearest room and shut the door behind them, both of them hiding behind the nearest object when a second door opened and there he was.

As far as Hanna could remember, they had never done anything to Noel, not to warrant everything he had done to them. And if they hadn't triggered it somehow, as they had with Jenna, that meant one thing – he was a true psychopath. Charlotte had been mentally ill and somehow, Hanna could forgive her for everything she had done to them and blame it on the illness instead, but with Noel Kahn, Hanna had no doubt that he enjoyed the fear and the pain he was causing which was so much more terrifying. "You can run, but you can't hide."

Her eyes closed when she heard his voice and quickly, her hand moved into Emily's once again, squeezing it tightly when she realised she couldn't breathe. Right then was not the time to have a panic attack, but the well-known feeling of something crushing her chest gave it away and she quickly shook her head when Emily looked at her. Breathe in and then out, she tried to tell herself, but at the sight of him brandishing a large weapon, all that came out was a soft whimper when tears began to fall down her face. She couldn't breathe, she was the most hopeless person in the world right then, or at least, that was how she felt. Henry needed her to get out of there alive, but all she could see was the panic in Emily's eyes when she realised she was quickly losing Hanna to the depths of an anxiety attack.

"I taught Jenna a lot but one thing she taught Charlotte and me... that was how to smell fear." Her chest felt as though it was on fire but she still understood the look in Emily's eyes as she removed her hand from hers and yanked at the shelves in front of them, watching them topple down like dominoes before the last one landed on the intended victim. It was the only opportunity they had to run and neither hesitated to leave the room just before the lights went out and they were plunged into darkness.

"E-Emily, I can't... I can't..." She tried to exhale, but the tears started before she could stop them and instead, she felt Emily's hands on both her shoulders, "I know you're scared right now Hanna but I need you to try and focus on me, and the right here, right now because we need you. I need you. Henry needs you to get the hell out of here so I need you to push through this, do whatever the hell you have to do to be able to get past this." Hanna shook her head, wanting to tell her that she didn't know what to do, that usually being able to hold her son in her arms, close to her chest, was enough to calm her down, perhaps Caleb's arms wrapped around her would have the same affect but she couldn't have either of those people with her right then. She had to rely on herself and that hadn't worked out too well for her in the past.

Still, her hand clutched over the large shovel Emily had snatched from the room, in the hopes a weapon would make her feel better, that being able to physically touch something that could hurt the person who was after them, would reduce the panic. She could only just make out his figure in the dark, but the little light there was from the cracks in the wood covered windows, shone off the blade of the weapon he had taken and she knew, without hesitation, that it was him. Quickly, before she could even think about what she was doing, she ran towards him, lunging and lifting the weapon with a grunt, watching as the sharp object lodged itself into the ground below them. He was distracted for a split second, as Emily made her move, punching him hard enough for him to fall.

It was the sound Hanna would always remember. The shovel dropped from her own hands and suddenly, she could breathe again, the pressure off her chest was gone and every emotion she had felt was replaced with shock at what had just happened in the matter of a few seconds. Her eyes closed to the sound of his severed head falling down each of the steps and she gulped back the bile that rose in her throat before she heard the sound of the other woman tumbling towards them, none of them had the time to discuss what had happened and with Noel gone, Hanna was sure that could mean they could get the hell out of there with nothing but emotional scars.

"We have to get out of here! Jenna's got a gun!" Spencer's eyes were wide with terror from the little Hanna could make out and it was enough for her to hold back the comment that was stuck in her throat right then. What damage could a blind girl do to them if she couldn't see what she was shooting at? Perhaps that made her even more dangerous, she supposed.

In the moments that followed, everything seemed to happen so quickly, and despite her belief just a second earlier, Hanna supposed a blind girl with a gun could do a hell of a lot of damage if that was what she intended to do.

The clear sound of a gun shot seemed to echo through the hallways.

And then the sound of them all screaming, panicked, terrified, filled with sobs and the sounds of feet tumbling down the stairs as they ran towards the door. Hanna could hear the door knob rattling and hands slamming against the wooden door, followed by the desperation in the voice of one of her best friends, "They locked us in, they were never gonna let us out of here!"

It didn't take long for them to realise their group wasn't whole, followed by the screams of a name that no one could really focus on.

She couldn't breathe. That crushing feeling was back, as though someone had just laid her down and placed a boulder on top of her, one that was slowly crushing her. There was a scream, and she had no idea if it came from her or someone close to her, everything and everyone seemed too far from her in that moment and despite the fact there was a woman with a gun in front of her, she still scrambled to grab her phone from her pocket, begging it to turn on quickly as she let out a sob.

Before she could look at the photograph of her little boy, the phone dropped from her hands and she let out a gasp for air, her entire body shaking when her back pressed against the nearest wall. She had always heard that before someone died, their entire life would flash before her eyes and she was met with a wave of emotions she would never be able to describe.

"Are you sure you want to eat that, Han?" Alison looked at the woman and gave her a small smirk before she pushed her hair back behind her ear, "You don't want to be Hefty Hanna forever, do you?" The fourteen year old blonde looked at her best friend, tears in her blue eyes as she shook her head, before Alison moved a hand down to her back, "There's a way you can stop it, you know? I can show you, do you trust me?"

She knelt down next to the toilet when suddenly, she was met with the eyes she had so quickly fallen in love with. She could see the disappointment, the anger, the pain that she had caused him before he looked at her, grabbed his bag and walked out of the door. Suddenly, the eyes she had been looking into before turned into the familiar blue ones of the baby boy she adored so much, only they reflected the same emotions. This wasn't her life, but what she supposed her life could have been – her teenage son looking at her with pure disgust, before his hand wrapped around her throat and she could smell the man who had helped her bring him into the world. She could hear his voice, she could smell his breath, she could feel the knife pressed against her but still, it was Henry's words that fell from the lips pressed against her ear, "You turned me into a monster, mom. This was your fault. You left me alone to be like him."

Emily's arms quickly wrapped around her and Hanna moved one hand quickly to grip onto her arm as she let out a sob, followed by a strangled cough before once again, her eyes closed and she heard the sound of her name being called, only it sounded far away, getting further with each desperate scream of her name.