A/N: Not many reviews. All still out there with me? (Thanks to all who did - definitely helped me move along and update this triple chapter!)

p.s. Sorry for the many and plenty errors. I didn't read over everything... =/

After collapsing in her mother's arms, Aria woke up tight faced and exhausted. It felt like she hadn't gotten any sleep when in fact she got plenty. Rubbing her hands over her ace, Aria shifted to her side and glanced at her nightstand. There was a small white piece of paper sitting near her clock.

Thought you needed to take the day off – Mom

Setting the note back down, she realized it was a little passed 10. Sighing, Aria turned back onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Maya was gone…she was gone. Gone. There was a hollowness that set in for Aria, and she was sure Emily was feeling so much more than what she was. Trying to get comfy again and reel herself away from her thoughts, she faced the wall and gazed at Jason Jr. Aria had stuck him on her bed when she slept alone at nights. He was so big that it felt like nice protection.

Tugging at one of his ears, she brought him down beside her and cuddled deeply with him. It was like she was five again, hugging her stuffed animal tightly. Unfortunately, Aria did feel five. She felt so lost and scared; she wasn't sure how she was going to get through another death. Beginning to sniffle, Aria buried her head in the dog and cried again. Life was so unfair. It was full of hurt and pain. Why did this happen? How could this happen?

Hanna and Spencer were both a full blow mess too. Mrs. Marin had let Hanna skip the day in collaboration with Ella and made sure Caleb was there to comfort her too when she left for work. Although the mother and daughter talk didn't happen yet, Ashley knew Hanna would eventually open up to her. Right now Maya's death was too much to go over and she understood that. She felt sorry that her daughter had to go through something like this again. It was a total shock to not only see it on the news when she went to work, but to see Hanna so upset when she got home was heartwrentching.

Spencer had fallen into Toby's arms as soon as she got out of the car. He was already waiting for her with his arms crossed against his truck. The two hugged each other and Toby let her cry uncontrollably for a while. It didn't matter that they had broken up because it was Maya that they shared in common too. She was a great girl and friend to them and although they only hung around with her once or twice, both Toby and Spencer liked her. It was sad for both of them, but even more so for Spencer. It was her best friend's girlfriend, so whether or not they were together, Toby didn't care. He was going to be there for Spencer – not because he thought it was right, but because he knew it was. The rest of the night he stayed with her and the next morning, skipping school, Toby stayed with her again when she began to cry.

It was a long day, for all three of them – trying to heal and all…

Around 1:30 Aria finally got out of her bed. She showered, did her hair, and even put on real clothes. Instead of sitting around, she went downstairs, wrote a not to her mom and grabbed her keys to go to work. The last thing that was best for Aria was to sit around thinking about what happened to Maya. Lingering pain would swallow her whole and Aria didn't want to feel that. So heading into the photography studio, she hung around the place and did little tasks like developing photos or organizing orders to be ready for pick up. The motions of everything soothed the thoughts swirling in her heads and the pictures of happy people made her spirits up lift a bit more. But when Aria realized the TV was on in the main room, she had to run to the dark room and cry. Maya was all over the news. Some stations covered the story about her body being found while others talked about what could have happened to lead to her murder.

It took Aria a while to compose herself before going back out there to finish her task on recording the receipts in a book, and after a while, she decided she couldn't go back out there. Instead, Aria grabbed her bag and took out a roll of film she had taken pictures with. They weren't too old. She was guessing that it was around the time her and Jason were going good and Toby was still around. Shifting around the small dark room, Aria kept focus on developing these pictures.

"She should be in there," Laurel said to someone. Barely paying attention to whoever it was, Aria continued to soak the picture. She had hung up quiet a few already. Some were of Spencer and Toby, Emily and Maya, a few of her and Jason, many of Hanna and Caleb, one of the guys (with Maya looking tough), and a select number of the four best friends together.

When Aria came across the ones of Maya she broke down and it took her a while to actually hang the photo up. But when she did she also remembered the good times the pictures held. They were of a bunch of different times. Numerous shots were of the weekend that the four friends got together with their significant others, while the other times were when they were testing out Aria's new camera and the four best friends were all messing around. Aria recalled how Hanna had taken the camera and snapped a bunch of silly and random photos of her and Caleb at the picnic and she laughed when she came across the one of Hanna and Emily making this weird face. They must have taken it themselves.

"Hey," a voice said stepping through the curtain. Looking up from her work, Aria saw Jason approaching.

"What are you doing here?" she wondered while getting ready to pull the next photo up from the tray.

"Your mom said you were here," he answered.

Turning to her work, Aria carefully took out the photo and hung it up to dry. This picture was another one of Maya and Emily. Emily had given Maya a kiss on the cheek and Maya was giving some funny face. Sighing, Aria swallowed hard and tried not to think too much about it.

Jason watched his girlfriend work. He studied her for a while, seeing the flash of emotion on her face. Stepping forth, he stayed behind her and put his hands on her tense shoulders. Kissing the side of her head, he slid his hands down to her arms. They stayed like that for a while, Aria being still as she was wrapped up in Jason.

It felt calming to her, and she took the soothing bliss as a time to clear her head. When the moments were over though, Aria went back to work, waiting for another photo to develop.

"I remember these," Jason spoke as he browsed at all the photographs hanging. He smiled at a few, along with frowning at some. His eyes lingered over the ones of him and Aria, and he made sure to have her bring them home.

"I love you," he murmured softly into her ear. Smiling slightly, she shifted so she could easily kiss him. "I love you too."

Aria didn't come home until late. Her and Jason stayed at the studio for a while and instead of leaving with him when he had to go back to work, she decided to stay and develop more photos until close. The whole day Aria had thought about Emily, and she wanted to go over there, but she needed her space. Mrs. Fields had texted them this morning saying it was best for Emily to rest. She hadn't gotten much sleep that night after they left and she looked like she needed it.

"Aria?" her mom called, knocking on her door as she slipped into bed.

"Hey," Ella said with a weak smile. Her daughter was sad; she didn't bother putting up a mask or trying to argue that she wasn't broken and that made Ella concerned. "How are you holding up?"

Aria gave a lame shrug, unsure what she was supposed to say to that. Fine? Good? Okay? None of those answers were acceptable. It was hard for her, especially after seeing those pictures of Maya she developed. Aria thought that it would give her some closure and peace of mind, but it did just the opposite. It haunted her. It made her think of all those times Maya was with them and hung around. It made her think of how happy Emily was at that time and it concerned Aria now that she wasn't. It was a bad idea to develop those photos, but Aria forgot that Maya was on there – and that made her feel worse.

"Did you still want to miss school tomorrow?" Ella asked.

"I should go see Emily," she replied with emptiness in her voice.

"Okay, I'll talk with Mrs. Marin and Hastings and see when Spencer and Hanna are going to go."

"Thanks," Aria said softly.

Ella furrowed her eyebrows. She wanted to say more, but it was like Aria was barely there to listen. She was struggling with a friend's death, so maybe she needed more time.

"Goodnight sweetie," she said kissing Aria's forehead.

"Night," Aria sighed, slipping further under the covers and going to sleep.

The week was hard for all the girls.

"We have to be strong for Emily," Spencer claimed at the beginning of the week. But as time passed, it was too hard for any of them to keep composure. They comforted Emily as best as possible and tried to help her move on. But it felt like the efforts were useless. Emily was barely there – sitting out of conversations, schoolwork and everything else. Aria had finally showed her the pictures she developed one night and Emily broke down sobbing her eyes out. That was the only time she could see Emily break from the emptiness she carried.

Maya's funeral was days after they found her body and Emily was breaking. She had kept her composure during the funeral but when it came to burying her, Emily had sobbed hysterically. As for the rest of them, they were hanging on by a thread. The funeral was full of memories and heart wrenching good things Maya consisted of, and at the burial, the girls had to hug on so tight to their boyfriends that they thought they were going to lose it too.

The girls' phones beeped, which made them all panic. Pulling open the message, they all saw what it said. It made Emily go ballistic and people who were still saying their goodbyes looked over.

Where were the tears when I died? – A

"I hate her! I can't take this!" Emily yelled out with a painful cry. Fully alert, the three friends dragged Emily away near an empty space and tried to calm her down.

"She's just taunting us, you need to calm down Em," Aria said hushly.

Emily let out a painful cry and fell to the grass on her knees.

"We know," Hanna said trying to comfort her as Emily sobbed in their arms.

"We'll get whoever's up to this, I promise you Em, we will," Spencer vowed.

As the girls took care of each other, the guys stared at them. Jason wanted to know what Emily was talking about, Caleb was getting hyped up on anger from everything he knew, and Toby was just standing there worried for them. What was this going to do to the girls? How were they supposed to cope with this now?

"Lets go home," Aria sighed, slipping her hand in Jason's. They walked back to his car silently, not bringing up what just occurred. As the girls held Emily trying to hush her, Mrs. Fields worriedly came up and took her daughter from them, letting her out cry in pain. Spencer, Hanna and Aria all did the same, grabbed their guys and parted ways. It was too much…all too much.

10 days, 4 hours and 34 seconds passed since Maya's funeral. Emily had been doing a bit better. She no longer broke down in sobs or skipped school because it was too much too soon. She coped a lot better than what others thought but was still silently hurting over Maya.

The girls had progressed from Maya's death too. They bonded even closer and made sure to figure out what happened. It was another mystery to be unraveled, but they promised themselves to do it. The guys had been supportive too. Jason had come around more often, being there for Aria when she needed to talk. Both Wren and Toby were there for Spencer, emotionally and to talk. Spencer couldn't exactly voice her sobs to Wren since he didn't know Maya, which is where Toby came in, but Wren was still there to try, and for her to cuddle and chat to. Hanna had Caleb still, who was her personal saint. He kept patience with her and showed her love in every way. Although much of their time was spent mulling over Maya and her death, some of their moments were just about them two. On a rare occasion it was about Caleb's over curiosity, but it didn't happen often since Hanna was still coping.

"We have a huge problem," Hanna said bursting into Emily's room. The place had some changes to it. Much of Emily's room consisted of the pictures Aria had developed of her and Maya. One was of Emily and Maya smiling into the camera – that was framed on her nightstand, another was of Maya posing with Spencer, Hanna and Aria – that was on her desk, and a few more were scattered places like on her dresser, hanging on the wall near her closet, and one near her door. It was her way of coping the girls' guessed.

"Caleb was just taken in for questioning," Hanna spoke.

"What?" The girls all said getting riled up.

"I need a computer…Emily where's your laptop?" Running for the computer, Hanna sat down at her desk and began typing. Hanna needed to get the files of thing about 'A' he had complied and kept on his computer before the police found it.

Dashing from the bed, Spencer, Emily, and Aria all went to see what Hanna was doing and what she might need.

"Ugh! What could this be?!" Hanna said freaking out as she hit the password protection. If she couldn't get passed this before the police looked at it, Caleb was going to go to jail.

"Your name?" Aria suggested.

"Your birthday," Emily spoke.

"His date of birth? Or maybe you're guys' first date day?" Spencer thought.

"No!" Hanna fretted trying all of them. Hitting her head and squeezing her eyes closed, she tried to remember what Caleb told her about her password.

"It's a combination of letters from the places I lived, some numbers and an exclamation point." He said one day in an empty classroom.

"In case anything happens," Hanna murmured to herself before she remembered. Typing it in, she quickly put '422SwSIDaR1105!' and hit enter. Praying it would work, it did and she quickly deleted all the files.

"Wow, nice one," Aria complimented when they all got to sigh with relief.

"You guys, that was too close," Emily stated.

"Go pick him up. Call us later," Spencer said to Hanna as she exhaled with relief.

"I can't believe 'A' almost sent Caleb to jail," Aria stated when they settled back down to talk after their friend left.

"It's getting too intense," Emily sighed.

"It doesn't make sense anymore," Spencer groaned.

"Maybe whoever it is is playing defense instead of offense now," Aria shrugged.

Spencer furrowed her eyebrows and glanced to Emily for back up. "Since when did you reference anything about sports?"

"Jason is teaching me the basics," Aria supplied as she sat on the bed.

"Wow, you really must like him," Spencer teased.

"Okay, so say he or she is," Emily said getting back on topic, "what does that mean for us?"

"It means we need to watch our backs either way," Spencer instructed, "whoever this is, is very good at playing both sides. If you think about it, we must be getting close to unraveling the mystery of who 'A' is. Why play defense if you don't need to? Whoever it is doesn't want us to figure it out."

*One Month Later*

(A/N: Sorry for the time skip, but didn't know what else to put in between it. It is around Thanksgiving time here.)

Several things have changed since Caleb was in trouble, Maya died, and Aria had been injured. For one, Wren and Spencer broke up. It unraveled quickly, Toby being the main problem. Although the two of them weren't together, Wren saw many signs of Spencer still liking him. It was almost a fatal attraction Wren thought. And so he let her go. He told her to be with Toby because he wasn't going to be around to watch it. It hurt Spencer at first, especially because she didn't want to hurt Wren, but he was partially right. Her heart wanted Toby. Maya's death had brought him back and she missed being with him. So her and Toby were back to being a couple.

Emily had been doing well. Samara had come back into the picture after hearing about Maya's death. She was the one that got Emily back to her normal self for good and after establishing a long friendship, they recently declared themselves a couple again. The girls were also happy for Emily when her dad came back into the picture. Mr. Fields declared that his family needed him, so as his tour came to an end near after Maya died, he came home and helped Emily move on too. It was nice to see him and their family so happy. Emily felt like things were stable again and not as bad.

It was helpful too that 'A' wasn't around for the period of time. Or…it could be arguable really.

Caleb and Hanna had become rocky in their relationship over the month. After the scene with Emily at the funeral and the computer thing, Caleb had taken a secret mission to figure out the puzzle. He stepped over some close boundaries a few times and it made Hanna a worried mess. She lashed out at him and pleaded him to stop, but Caleb felt like it was his duty to protect Hanna. So needless to say, it put the two at an off stance with each other. Both were on the mission to help each other, just in different ways. Oh, and alongside that, while Caleb was digging around for 'A', his mom ended up contacting him. It was huge for the two of them since she lived in California. He had a decision to make. See her for a few weeks or stay around Rosewood. As much as Hanna wanted him with her, she also had to be a bigger person. She insisted that he should go stay with her for a little while – it was going to be the best for them and the 'A' problem. So he left and the poor girl was a wreck. But eventually as time passed, it healed her and her relationship with him. 'A' was no longer brought up in every conversation they had, but the love they had for each other.

"Do you think he was seeing her while also with you?" Emily wondered to Aria as they sat in her room. For Aria, the past month of her life was fairly peaceful. With 'A' on a break, Jason stopped asking questions and became a well-known figure in the Montgomery household. Mike had been doing great, excelling in school and playing sports like usual. And as for Ella, she had healed from her divorce and settled on moving forward. Byron had already started dating someone, which was a bump in the road for the family, but with the support system Aria had, she dealt with it. Her job at the photography studio was going well. She earned a good amount of money and learned a lot.

"I don't know," she replied angry. This weekend while she was out shopping with her friends, Aria had seen Ezra and Jackie walking the streets. At first she didn't think anything of it, until she noticed he was holding her hand and they stopped at the window to look at engagement rings.

"I don't know if Fitz is the kind of guy to cheat on someone," Spencer thought.

"He dated his own student Spence, I think we can assume anything about him," Hanna pointed out.

Aria wasn't the one to be jealous, and she didn't think she was. But she was angry. Was Ezra seeing Jackie when the two of them were dating? And if he wasn't, it only had to be about a month or two since they got back together.

"It doesn't even matter anyways," Aria said coming to sit back down with her friends. "Ezra and I ended a long time ago. And Jackie and him have history. So what."

"So what? Aria, he could have been cheating on you," Spencer stated like she was stupid.

"Thank you, I realize that," she replied. "But I shouldn't care. He's over me and happy with her now. That's a good thing."

"Right," Emily said looking at her with skepticism.

"Seriously you guys," Aria said rolling her eyes.

"How is Jason taking this news?" Hanna wondered.

"Very happy," Aria confirmed. "He was glad to see Ezra over me and onto someone else."

"So…no more drama with that?" Spencer asked, thinking back to their big fight, which broke them up.

"Nope," Aria answered with a smile. The girls hung around Aria's place for a while before deciding to go out and roam the streets. The long weekend was a good time to hang around and have a normal life again.

"Look you guys," Spencer said. Jenna and Garrett seemed to be fighting on the sidewalk. Garrett was trying to plead with Jenna about something but she was walking away, getting into a taxi she must have called.

"What do you think that was about?" Emily wondered as the four of them watched from afar.

"Nothing good that's for sure," Aria said as she glanced around. Garrett, who was looking sad and ticked off walked back to the front of the café and got into his car driving off.

"Are you sure you want to spend Thanksgiving with my family?" Aria asked Jason as they sat on his couch. After spending the afternoon with the girls, she had popped by over Jason's to hang around with him.

"Why wouldn't I? Your family is nice," he responded looking down at her. Aria had settled comfortably with her head in Jason's lap while the rest of her body was sprawled out on his huge comfy couch.

"What about your family?"

"Ar, my family hasn't had thanksgiving or a real meal together in a long time," he said running a hand through her hair.

Aria frowned, feeling bad that Ali's death caused so much disruption to the family.

"You could ask them if you want…to come to dinner with us," she suggested. Jason's eyebrows furrowed. "The last time you saw my mom, I believe she asked you to wear some of Ali's old dresses and model them on stage."

Aria made a face at that and went to sit up. "You don't have to ask if you don't want to, but if you ever feel like it, you could you know," she shrugged. "My mom plans to have almost everybody over this year."

"Your dad?" he wondered.

"Him, his girlfriend, the man across the street," Aria listed. Jason gave a chuckle and watched as she put on her shoes. "I have to stop at Hollis and pick up Mike."

"Tell him I said hi," Jason said kissing Aria before she got up from the couch.

"Will do," she chirped. "Love you!" she called as she walked out of the house.

Mike was ready to go as soon as she approached her dad's office. He was sitting in one of his chairs with a grumpy face and backpack slung over his shoulder.

"Ready to go?" she wondered knocking on the door.

Not saying a word, he got up and passed her to go to the car.

"What happened?" Aria asked her dad who was sitting at his desk doing some work.

"Mike is just upset with me that I'm bringing Opal," he sighed, glancing up at his daughter. Opal was Byron's new girlfriend. He had been dating her for a little over a month. Aria stayed quiet, leaning against the doorway.

"You kids are going to have to get used to that she's around now," he said staring at Aria.

"You don't think we have?" Aria asked with a raised eyebrow. "Dad, you just left mom a little while ago and now your dating this woman. How did you want us to feel?"

"Your mother left me," he stated trying to justify himself while ignoring the other question.

"You cheated on her – twice," Aria stated with her arms crossed.

"Aria, this is none of your business," he sighed.

"Yes it is," she said getting agitated. Ever since her father met this Opal woman he had started becoming different towards his kids. He was now all about her and saying that Aria and Mike needed to respect her as a mother figure too. Those lines made both kids sick. "You know what, never mind. I'll see you at thanksgiving," she said and walked away.

Getting in the driver's side with Mike, she noticed how sad he looked. "Did he throw the line at you too?" Mike grumbled.

Aria sighed again and nodded. Bryon had always would say 'its none of your business' when either one of them proved a good point and put Opal down. It was his way of saying discussion over and he wasn't going to listen anymore.

"We'll be okay Mike," Aria stated softly before he got his music player out and drowned out the world.