A/N I had a little bit of trouble writing this chapter, but I hope you guys like it. Because it's Ezra POV there aren't any specific dates and time goes by much faster. I think the next chapter is the one you've really been waiting for. Enjoy! Please review!

The 2010-2011 school year, the school year where Aria would have been a sophomore and Mike in eighth grade, Ezra taught his English classes contentedly if not happily. He had broken up with Jackie in July, and since then he had decided to redo his life, starting with his house. He finished his redecorating and his remodel of the home his grandparents left him.

The living room was painted an emerald green, the guest bathroom got a new sink, the hardwood stairs on the second floor had been refinished, and he bought new furniture for the guest room. He read up on plants, and went into a local nursery knowing specifically what he wanted to purchase. He invested in black quartz countertops for the kitchen and turned the sliding back door into a French door. He got rid of anything that reminded him of his grandparents' deaths, and he donated his grandmother's frilly rose pillows and quilts to Goodwill. He only kept a few things that reminded him of the Springers. Their wedding album was kept on the coffee table where it had always sat. The painting that they had bought in Paris still hung in the dining room. The angel figurine that his grandmother loved still sat on the bedside table. The attic was still filled with mementos from their lives, things he didn't have the heart to rummage through at the moment.

Ezra also took care of the Montgomery house. From July to September, he made sure the grass was mowed. From September to November, he raked the leaves, and from November to February, he made sure that there was always a path through the snow from the street to the front door. That year he also installed a gate between his backyard and the Montgomery's. It was intended for Aria's use, so that she could go back and forth to the tree house at will, if she still decided she wanted to use the tree house when she came back from Iceland.

Although he wasn't in any serious relationship, he did go out. Hardy and a few other people from work set him up on blind dates. Although the girls he went out with xseemed nice enough, he couldn't see any of them in his future. He and Hardy spent Friday nights at their favorite bar. Ezra even read some his poems there a few times. But he was careful not to get drunk again, and he was careful to avoid Jackie. He knew that she still worked at Hollis and had been promoted from TA sometime shortly after they had broken up. He hoped that she got the future she desired, but he also knew that she had a tendency to be vengeful and vindictive when she wanted.

As busy as he was redecorating his house to suit his tastes, Ezra spent his vacations traveling. He spent Thanksgiving up in New York City going to museums and reading in Central Park. He even spent a day at Ellis and Liberty Islands before going back to Pennsylvania. For Christmas vacation, he backpacked through Ireland enjoying the sight of the emerald green grass and grimacing as the rain that seemed to fall at the most inopportune moments. He spent New Year's at a bar in Dublin's Temple Bar district, drinking Guinness and smiling as the Dubliners invited him to join in their celebrations. He spent Spring Break at an isolated cabin on Lake Erie where he could be alone with his writing and his thoughts. Soon summer rolled around again, and as the school bell rang on the last day s of school in May, he felt his heart tighten as he realized that he had missed Aria's sixteenth birthday and Mike's fourteenth. With July fast approaching, he realized that his own twenty-sixth birthday was not far away.

Ezra saw Emily, Spencer, and Hanna in the hallways of Rosewood High. He noticed that Hanna had lost a tremendous amount of weight and wondered how hard of a toll her parent's divorce had taken on her. Spencer often ran by him on her way to class, decathlon meetings, and field hockey practice. He saw in the school newspaper that Emily was one of the school's best swimmers, with one of the best times in the state. Although he knew Spencer, Hanna, and Emily through Aria, he didn't have the same relationship with them that he had with her. They nodded to each other in the hallways and waved at each other across town. Emily even came into his classroom a few times during his off period to ask for help with her English homework. He knew that she was only one of several students who was having trouble in Mrs. Welch's English II class. But that was where his interaction with Aria's friends began and ended. He knew that in the world he lived in, he was the teacher and they were the students.

He emailed Byron weekly updates about what was going on in Rosewood, and Byron responded with the going-ons in Reykjavik just as frequently. Christmas cards were exchanged as were birthday cards and anniversary ones. Ezra knew that Montgomerys were supposed to be back in mid-July, and he even mowed the Montgomery's lawn and swept their porch in preparation for their homecoming, but Byron sent him an email toward s the middle of that month saying that he and Ella had decided to keep the family in Iceland for an extra week before traveling through Europe until school started up again in August. He stated that Ella especially wanted to visit her grandmother's house in Tuscany. Ezra sighed and resigned himself to waiting for their homecoming for another month.

Eventually the Montgomerys did return home, and brought a plethora of boxes and suitcases with them. He waited a day for them to settle in before he went over. Ella and Byron were delighted to see him, and he was glad that their marriage seemed to be stronger than ever. Unfortunately, he had just missed Mike and Aria. Mike had fallen in love with lacrosse during their time abroad, and Aria had taken him to school for try-outs. He was a little taken aback at the thought of Mike in high school and Aria driving. Perhaps they had been gone longer than he thought, or maybe much more than he realized had changed during their time away. After an hour of catching up, Ezra was invited over to dinner the following week, after everything had been unpacked and everyone was settled into work and school. He accepted before walking back over to his house to get ready for the first day of school the following morning.

He walked into his empty classroom bright and early the next day. He was wearing a new vest and tie and seemed particularly chipper. For some reason, he was excited for the school year to begin, and he felt some sense of anticipation building up in the bottom of his stomach. He poured himself a cup of coffee from the teacher's lounge and took it back to his classroom. The hallways were swarming with students, and he smiled at the nervousness of the freshmen. When he got back to his room he saw that there several students sitting at their desks.

He recognized Mona Vanderwaal from different school activities and of course he knew Hanna Marin. Spencer Hastings was sitting at her typical spot on the corner of the first row. Holden Strauss made himself comfortable in the back the classroom, and other English III students Ezra didn't recognize made their way to other desks. Taking a sip of coffee, he turned to the blackboard to write his name "Mr. Fitz" in white chalk. The bell rang and he turned around to address the class, grabbing his coffee mug from his desk.

The first thing he noticed was that Emily Fields was sitting in the fourth row, the second thing he noticed, almost instantaneously, was that Aria was sitting next to her, one row over from the windows, and she didn't look like the Aria he remembered. "Holy Crap" were the first words out of his mouth, and her eyes looked up to meet his.