FYI I'm kind of just going with the flow as I write this. I started knowing how I wanted to begin and how I wanted to end but knew absolutely nothing about what was going to happen in the middle. Should I follow the show more closely? Should I write more of my own ideas? You tell me! :)

Ezra was startled when he heard a knock at the door. Most people who came to visit him, which usually consisted of Aria or Hardy, tended to knock. It was March 15, the Wednesday of Spring Break. He got up from his perch on the sofa and answered the door.

"Byron," he greeted politely. "Come in. Can I get you anything…water? ...beer?"

"No thank you," said Byron stepping into the foyer and walking towards the living room as Ezra followed. "Do you know why I'm here?" asked Byron as he sat on the sofa.

Ezra, who was sitting across from him in the easy chair, answered, "I have an idea."

"I've known you a long time," Byron sighed. "And you've been there for her in a way her parents could not have."

"Byron, I…" Ezra started.

Byron held up his hand, "Let me finish. I know that some teacher student relationships can be hard to navigate. That it can lead to some tricky situations. But that doesn't mean that I'm okay with this."

"Byron," Ezra started, "I understand where you're coming from, but she's always been more than just my student. She's been the girl next door for years."

"Maybe," Bryon inclined his head. "But that's not how the rest of the world sees it. She's not even eighteen," he stated.

"But she's been through more than some people experience in a lifetime," responded Ezra.

"Perhaps, but she has also experienced less than you have. Nine years stand between you and her."

Ezra nodded, "Is it my age that bothers you or that fact that I'm her teacher?"

Byron rubbed his face with his hands before answering, "The teacher thing really hits a chord, but if she were eighteen then I wouldn't feel so," he moved his hands expressively, "so worried about everything." He looked around the room as Ezra answered.

"I've only said I love you to three women in my life: my mother, my grandmother, and her." He paused. "I've lived long enough to know what I want."

Byron got up and started to walk around the room, looking at pictures on the wall and touching some of the knick-knacks on the shelves. "Ella's told me some things about your past," he started. "And I've guessed others. Would you be willing to wait to get what you wanted? I mean really wait? What if didn't have a child until you were forty? What if you had to wait for her to come back to you until after she spent years at school?" Byron retraced his steps and sat back on the sofa. "Do you know that she's already looking at colleges in New York?" Byron saw Ezra's face change slightly at this news and realized that he hadn't known.

"I love her," he said softly. "I understand where you're coming from, but I love her."

"You've known her for years," said Byron. "And I know that change can come swiftly. And I know you can give her all the worldly things she desires, but life is more than that." Byron paused and then continued, "Are you willing to go through everything your father did so you could have her?" When Ezra didn't answer, Byron got up and walked towards the front door. "Think about it," he called over his shoulder.

Ezra couldn't remember how long he sat in the living room. Long enough to let the sting of Byron's words bother him, but also long enough to realize that there was truth to what he said. Calmly and collectedly he walked up towards his bedroom and opened one of the dresser drawers. He threw things into his suitcase and called Hardy, asking his friend to drop him off at the airport. Within an hour he was gone.

At dinner that night, Byron told his daughter that Ezra had left for a little while. He watched the emotions flitter across her face, the sadness, the anger, the frustration, the hurt. She asked to be excused from dinner and walked up to her bedroom silently.

Ella looked at Byron across the table, Byron refused to look back. Mike, who had been staring at his lasagna, looked at both his parents. "She really loves him, you know," he stated calmly before following his sister's example and heading up to his room.

That night Aria wrote in her journal, "I thought we were past this."

On Monday, March 20, Aria talked to her friends during lunch. "We have a substitute for English again."

"Yeah," answered Spencer, "I just love having busy work when teachers are absent." She was picking at her food.

"What's wrong with you, Spence?" asked Hanna. She was attacking her meal with vigor.

"Something doesn't feel right about Ian," said Spencer. "It's just I feel shivers every time he walks into the room. And Melissa's pregnant, and she's excited about it. That's not my sister."

"What about him that's bothering you?" asked Emily.

"I saw him the other day looking at Ali's picture," Spencer shuddered. "It was creepy."

On Friday, March 24, Aria was at Hanna's house, helping her pick out an outfit. "Where are you going?" she asked.

"On a date," answered Hanna. She pulled a top out of her closet, "What do you think of this?"

"I like it," replied Aria. "Wear it with the white pants." She watched as Hanna rummaged through her closet for shoes. "Who are going with?"

"I'm going on this double date thing with Lucas and some girl from the yearbook and Caleb."

Aria sat up on Hanna's bed. "Caleb Rivers? I thought you couldn't stand him."

Hanna came out from the back of her closet holding up a pair of red heels. "These?" she asked, holding them up.

"Perfect. But what happened with Caleb?"

Hanna opened her jewelry box and began looking through it. "I changed my mind."

"You don't just change your mind," answered Aria. "What happened?"

Hanna shrugged and put on a pair of gold hoop earrings, "I don't know. He just turned out not to be the person I thought he was."

"Well," said Aria, lying back down on the bed, "Anyone who has the good sense to dislike Noel Khan is a guy I approve of."

"What happened to Fitz?" asked Hanna.

"You can call him Ezra, you know," sighed Aria. "I don't know. He just got up one day and disappeared."

"Did anything happen between you two?" asked Hanna rubbing lotion on her arms.

"I learned some things about his past. Not bad things but some really sad stuff."

"Anything else?"

"No. I know he's been touchy about our being together because I'm his student and the age difference, but if he really loved me that wouldn't matter."

"Maybe it doesn't matter," answered Hanna. She got up from her vanity to sit beside Aria. "Maybe it's something else."

"What else could it be?"

"Who else knew him before he moved to Rosewood?"

Realization dawned in Aria's eyes. She shut them. "Not her. I can't stand her."

Hanna shrugged and hopped off the bed. "She's probably the only one who has an idea of what's going on." Aria groaned.

On Monday, March 27, Aria tentatively knocked on a wooden door. "Come in," a voice called from the other side. Aria braced herself before crossing the threshold.

"Hi," she said brightly, plastering a smile on her face. The woman looked up from where she was working on the other side of her desk.

"Your Professor Montgomery's daughter, right?" she asked. "Aria?"

"Hi, Jackie," she greeted walking over to sit on one of the chairs in front of her desk.

"Is there something I can help you with?" asked Jackie pointedly.

"Umm, I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to ask." Aria leaned forward. "Ezra's been gone for a while now, and I was wondering if you know where he was?"

Jackie looked her over before answering, "I haven't talked to him in months."

"But maybe you know something about his past, something that could explain why he felt the need to disappear?" Aria pleaded.

Jackie dropped her pen onto her desk and leaned back in her chair. "You're taking a great deal of interest in Ezra's past for someone who's only his neighbor." She looked Aria in the eye. "And you've certainly grown up."

Aria swallowed. "I'm just worried about him. We've been friends a long time."

"I see." Jackie turned back to her papers, "He never told me much about his family, even when we were engaged." When she heard Aria's sharp intake of breath, she looked back up. "Oh, I didn't realize you didn't know." She paused, "Good day, Aria," she said firmly.

Silently Aria grabbed her purse and walked out the door. She wrote in her journal, "I thought he had told me everything."

Ezra was back in class March 28, and Aria avoided him. She avoided him the next day and the day after that. On March 31, he was finally forced to ask her to stay after class.

"You know the essay I turned in was good," she started abruptly standing in front of his desk.

He sighed, "You've been avoiding me."

She was silent for a moment, and Ezra knew her well enough to brace himself, "How could you do that? How could you just leave like that without saying anything? I was so worried I tracked Jackie down at Hollis." She shook her head, "Apparently your last name wasn't the only detail you hadn't given me."

"What did she tell you?" Aria heard his tone of voice change, and she barely recognized the emotion he was conveying. It was anger.

"When were you going to tell me that you had been engaged?" she shot back.

"It was a long time ago. We were in college."

"What about now?"

He took a deep breath before asking, "What do you mean?"

"Is there anything else you aren't telling me? I'm a big girl, Ezra. I promise I can take it."

"You should be able to do whatever you want."

She snorted. "Excuse me?"

"You should be able to go to college in New York and spend time with your friends and not worry about what anybody else thinks."

"I looked at one college in New York. I thought we could move there together."

He shook his head, "That's not the way it works. You can't pack up your high school English teacher and bring him with you."

"Why can't it if we want it too?" she asked back. She took a deep breath and lowered her voice, "When you're ready to tell me everything, and I mean everything. You know where to find me." She walked out of the room, her heels clicking on the tiled floor. He watched as she left, and saw that Hanna, Emily, and Spencer had been watching them through the glass of the closed door.